For a long time, people could tell that there was some connection between chickenpox and shingles. But exactly how they were related was a mystery. Then, in the 1950s, a family doctor shipped out to a remote Scottish island to investigate an outbreak, and made a discovery that shaped our understanding of shingles. On today's show, Ann Arvin, professor emerita at Stanford Medical School, tells us that detective story. Then Robert Johnson of the University of Bristol explains what he's learned about treating pain in his decades working with shingles patients.

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Almost everyone on earth has Epstein-Barr virus. Usually it's pretty mild - you get sick, you get better. But the virus lives on in your body forever. Today, we talk with Dorothy Crawford (author of "Cancer Virus") about how one obsessive researcher uncovered a link between Epstein-Barr and cancer, and changed the way we think about viruses. Later in the show, we talk with Bill Robinson about his groundbreaking discovery of how Epstein-Barr can cause multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases.

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What did the 2014 Ebola outbreak teach us about preventing future pandemics? Our guests this week, Christian Happi and Pardis Sabeti, are world experts on disease surveillance, and have worked together fighting infectious disease in Africa for over a decade. Happi shares a gripping account of how he courageously helped stop Ebola from spreading in Nigeria during the 2014 West Africa outbreak. Then Sabeti explains how a new era of surveillance may help prevent future pandemics.

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