Pages

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The woman who discovered the first coronavirus

From BBC News
The woman who discovered the first human coronavirus was the daughter of a Scottish bus driver who left school at 16.

June Almeida with her electron microscope at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto in 1963
June Almeida went on to become a pioneer of virus imaging, whose work has come roaring back into focus during the present pandemic.

Covid-19 is a new virus but it is a coronavirus of the type first identified by Dr Almeida in 1964 at her laboratory in St Thomas's Hospital in London.

June Almeida died in 2007, at the age of 77. 
Now 13 years after her death she is finally getting recognition she deserves as a pioneer whose work speeded up understanding of the virus that is currently spreading throughout the world.

No comments:

Post a Comment