Miguel Bronchud, Veteran Cancer Clinician and Researcher and Co-Founder of Regenerative Medicine Solutions, shared on LinkedIn:
“Viruses cause cancers – more and better preventive Vaccine Programs are warranted?
Nice review in The Independent (UK) by John (Eddie) La Marca and The Conversation and Sarah Diepstraten- on Tuesday 10 November 2026.
Article based on a paper in The Lancet written by Australian scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall.
Australia has often made substantial contributions to medical progress. Not often acknowledged. One of these was the elucidations of blood ‘growth factors’, that were given such mysterious name in the 1960s precisely because of their then unknown molecular structure.
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) is a wonderful cancer and leukemia research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, I used to know well (some four decades ago) while researching in Manchester on recombinant human G-CSF (a growth factor first identified in New York at the MSK) with Prof Mike Dexter and Prof Derek Crowther.
But it all really started in Australia with Professor Don Metcalf who spent his entire career at WEHI.
He was a man of huge patient and humble spirit who discovered Colony Stimulating Factors (CSFs), which stimulate white blood cell production and have revolutionized cancer treatments and bone marrow transplants for over 40 million people worldwide.
His contributions to EPO Discovery were also crucial.
Cancer is linked to 2.3 million worldwide new cancer cases to an infection. Most were caused by just five pathogens: Helicobacter pylori (4%), human papillomavirus, or HPV (4%), hepatitis B (2%), Epstein-Barr virus (1%) and hepatitis C (under 1%). These infections can cause more than 20 different types of cancer, including stomach, liver, blood and cervical cancers.
In other words: Around 12% of the world’s total cancer cases in 2024 were likely caused by an infection, according to new research from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
This is surely one area where the Next WHO Director can make important contributions and not only provide the vaccine products but also the logistics across geographical barriers and above all across both cultural access and socioeconomic status barriers….
The study, published in The Lancet Oncology, analysed the frequency and causes of different cancers, specifically examining the role of infections.
- There are 3 main ways viruses can do this.
The 1st is by turning off the ability of a cell to destroy itself (for example, by inactivating the TP53 protein) or to stop dividing (for example, by inactivating the RB protein). A healthy cell would normally try to do these things if infected by a virus. - The 2nd way a virus can cause cancer is by inserting its own DNA into the host cell’s DNA, which can accidentally disrupt genes that control cell death or division (like those above).
Other articles about Miguel Bronchud on OncoDaily.