Burkitt lymphoma--a stalking horse for cancer research?

Joe Burchenal has predicted in 1966 that Burkitt lymphoma may serve as a stalking horse for cancer research, in revealing new principles. This has been the case with regard to the definition of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in the genesis of virally driven immunoblastomas in immunodefectives, the discovery of the Ig/myc translocation, the main rate limiting event in the genesis of Burkitt lymphoma, the role of secondary events, particularly the inactivation of the Rb and p53 pathways in cells driven by constitutively active myc and other oncogenes and the discovery of the EBV encoded nuclear antigen complex (EBNA) and its role in viral transformation and latency.