#GAReads | The woman who discovered the first coronavirus
From Plate 1 of The Morphology of Three Previously Uncharacterized Human Respiratory Viruses that Grow in Organ Culture by June D. Almeida and D. A. J. Tyrrell (28 November 1966). Photo credit: June Almeida and David Tyrrell [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).
“The woman who discovered the first coronavirus”:
The woman who discovered the first human coronavirus 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.