Trials of an anticancer jab

摘要

For Matti Lehtinen, a virologist and professor of public health at the University of Tampere, Finland, it was a setback to hear that the cause of cervical cancer was the human papillomavirus (HPV). He had spent several years on the wrong track — as had many scientists during the 1970s — invest -igating a different virus altogether: the herpes simplex virus (HSV). "It was very disappointing," he admits.