Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,151,861 members, 7,813,937 topics. Date: Tuesday, 30 April 2024 at 10:08 PM

CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus - Health - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Health / CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus (914 Views)

Meet Amarachukwu Allison, Doctor Who Discovered Nigeria's Index COVID-19 Case / Iraq Announces First Coronavirus Death / Senegal Confirms First Coronavirus Case, Patient Is A French Man (2) (3) (4)

(1) (Reply) (Go Down)

CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 10:12am On Apr 16, 2020
Covid-19 is a new coronavirus, but the first was identified by Dr June Almeida in 1964 at her laboratory in London's St Thomas's Hospital.
she was the daughter of a Scottish bus driver, who left school at 16.

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 illness but it is caused by a coronavirus of the type first identified by Dr Almeida in 1964 at her laboratory in St Thomas's Hospital in London.

The virologist was born June Hart in 1930 and grew up in a tenement near Alexandra Park in the north east of Glasgow.

She left school with little formal education but got a job as a laboratory technician in histopathology at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

Later she moved to London to further her career and in 1954 married Enriques Almeida, a Venezuelan artist.

COMMON COLD RESEARCH
The couple and their young daughter moved to Toronto in Canada and, according to medical writer George Winter, it was at the Ontario Cancer Institute that Dr Almeida developed her outstanding skills with an electron microscope.

She pioneered a method which better visualised viruses by using antibodies to aggregate them.
Mr Winter told Drivetime on BBC Radio Scotland her talents were recognised in the UK and she was lured back in 1964 to work at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London, the same hospital that treated Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was suffering from the Covid-19 virus.

On her return, she began to collaborate with Dr David Tyrrell, who was running research at the common cold unit in Salisbury in Wiltshire.
Mr Winter says Dr Tyrrell had been studying nasal washings from volunteers and his team had found that they were able to grow quite a few common cold-associated viruses but not all of them.

One sample in particular, which became known as B814, was from the nasal washings of a pupil at a boarding school in Surrey in 1960.

They found that they were able to transmit common cold symptoms to volunteers but they were unable to grow it in routine cell culture.

However, volunteer studies demonstrated its growth in organ cultures and Dr Tyrrell wondered if it could be seen by an electron microscope.

They sent samples to June Almeida who saw the virus particles in the specimens, which she described as like influenza viruses but not exactly the same.

She identified what became known as the first human coronavirus.

Mr Winter says that Dr Almeida had actually seen particles like this before while investigating mouse hepatitis and infectious bronchitis of chickens.
However, he says her paper to a peer-reviewed journal was rejected "because the referees said the images she produced were just bad pictures of influenza virus particles".

The new discovery from strain B814 was written up in the British Medical Journal in 1965 and the first photographs of what she had seen were published in the Journal of General Virology two years later.
According to Mr Winter, it was Dr Tyrrell and Dr Almeida, along with Prof Tony Waterson, the man in charge at St Thomas's, who named it coronavirus because of the crown or halo surrounding it on the viral image.

Dr Almeida later worked at the Postgraduate Medical School in London, where she was awarded a doctorate.

She finished her career at the Wellcome Institute, where she was named on several patents in the field of imaging viruses.

After leaving Wellcome, Dr Almeida become a yoga teacher but went back into virology in an advisory role in the late 1980s when she helped take novel pictures of the HIV virus.

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.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-52278716?at_campaign=64&at_medium=custom7&at_custom3=BBC+News&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_custom2=facebook_page&at_custom4=E60D0E7A-7F22-11EA-86A5-C3D8923C408C

dominique
Sissy3

Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by Bilabong(m): 10:14am On Apr 16, 2020
Booked
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by Pimples(m): 10:17am On Apr 16, 2020
The virus she discovered is not as harmful as the one we are contending with.
They have genetically modified it to be more dangerous. They are making several strains of it to achieve a hidden agenda.
Science is one big business scheme
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by BIDOO(m): 10:19am On Apr 16, 2020
Good day everyone, please I'm using this medium to solicit for financial help from any caregiver , I don't know that it will eventually leads to this but all my effort so far has defy any meaningful outcome and I'm left with no other option than to seek for financial assistance on a platform like this because nobody seems to care in this environ ! I'm a student in one of the state institution in Nigeria, As at the time federal government ordered closure of all schools across the country, the money I had with me cannot take me home and mind you calling home will add more salt to my injury because I am sole sponsor of myself, so I decide to stay back hoping within a week or two schools will resume back and I will continue with my academic hustle (I do earn little from taking tutorial and this is how I've being surviving coupled with few menial job at weekend)
But all hope were dashed When a lock down was announced for the first time! No menial job to support myself again, all my friends already out of school area, I was left with the people of the soil and that began the real struggle, now that another two weeks was added it seems my own world is crumbling before me! Reason why I come to this platform to seek for financial assistance Please dear nairalander no amount is too small help me with any amount and I pray God will reward you as you do so.
My details is 3060037742 first bank.
Please this is not a scam,
You can mention me and I will provide you with all the necessary information with evidence to confirm truly that I'm a student if need arise. Thanks
Please overlook if there is any grammatical blunder
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by MansoryMX(m): 10:28am On Apr 16, 2020
You can see this virus has been in existence for a very long time. Scientists have no cure for any virus at the moment and I don’t think this Coronavirus will be leaving us alone anytime soon. We need a vaccine as soon as possible if not millions of people will die from this.
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by Airoflaw(m): 11:04am On Apr 16, 2020
Hmm

Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by Mizwisdom(f): 11:07am On Apr 16, 2020
Women are first in everything
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by PureGoldh(m): 11:08am On Apr 16, 2020
Interesting.....No be today wey dx CoronaVirus pick baton seff
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by OJODEL10(m): 11:20am On Apr 16, 2020
the virus has been discovered since 1964, now 2020 it is now causing harm please turn to another episode of the covide 19.
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 11:25am On Apr 16, 2020
Mizwisdom:
Women are first in everything
Lol...that's funny. don't start what you can't finish by using the words "in everything"
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 11:25am On Apr 16, 2020
OJODEL10:
the virus has been discovered since 1964, now 2020 it is now causing harm please turn to another episode of the covide 19.
coronavirus are group of viruses..the one we are facing now is novel corona virus
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 11:26am On Apr 16, 2020
PureGoldh:
Interesting.....No be today wey dx CoronaVirus pick baton seff
yes oo
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 11:28am On Apr 16, 2020
MansoryMX:
You can see this virus has been in existence for a very long time. Scientists have no cure for any virus at the moment and I don’t think this Coronavirus will be leaving us alone anytime soon. We need a vaccine as soon as possible if not millions of people will die from this.
vaccine doesn't stop a virus, same as drugs. it just controls the fatality rate and the number of people it affects.
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 11:29am On Apr 16, 2020
Pimples:
The virus she discovered is not as harmful as the one we are contending with.
They have genetically modified it to be more dangerous. They are making several strains of it to achieve a hidden agenda.
Science is one big business scheme
and the one we are facing now is not as deadly as malaria
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by MansoryMX(m): 11:46am On Apr 16, 2020
flyinnizam:
vaccine doesn't stop a virus, same as drugs. it just controls the fatality rate and the number of people it affects.

Did I say it will eradicate the virus or have you heard of anyone suffering from a virus infection get cured completely?
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 11:59am On Apr 16, 2020
MansoryMX:


Did I say it will eradicate the virus or have you heard of anyone suffering from a virus infection get cured completely?
U said it indirectly. you said "leaving us anytime soon" but it's never leaving us.
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by MansoryMX(m): 12:07pm On Apr 16, 2020
flyinnizam:
U said it indirectly. you said "leaving us anytime soon" but it's never leaving us.

Read what I said again bro and you will understand what I said.
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 1:41pm On Apr 16, 2020
MansoryMX:


Read what I said again bro and you will understand what I said.
okay since you can't take correction
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by MansoryMX(m): 2:11pm On Apr 16, 2020
flyinnizam:
okay since you can't take correction

Go and re-read what I said o and stop mentioning me.
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by Commonsense99: 2:58pm On Apr 16, 2020
Wow, great intuition, nice discover, these are the original slay queen's of yesteryears.
Re: CORONAVIRUS : Meet The Woman Who Discovered The First Coronavirus by flyinnizam(m): 4:47pm On Apr 17, 2020
Commonsense99:
Wow, great intuition, nice discover, these are the original slay queen's of yesteryears.
Lol. the current ones own na to twerk

(1) (Reply)

Tragic Story Of 25-year-old Man Trapped Inside Body Of A Baby / What To Do Whenever You See A Snake / Doctors In The House, Please Help A Brother...photos

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 38
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.