June Dalziel Almeida (5 October 1930 – 1 December 2007) was a
Scottish virologist
Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, their ...
, a pioneer in virus imaging, identification, and diagnosis. Her skills in electron microscopy earned her an international reputation.
In 1964, Almeida was recruited by
St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London was one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in the UK. The school was absorbed to form part of King's College London.
History
It was part of one of the oldest hospitals in London, ...
in London. By 1967, she had earned her
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...
(Sc.D.) on the basis of her research and the resulting publications, while working in Canada, at Toronto's
Ontario Cancer Institute
The Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI) is the research division of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, affiliated to the University Health Network of the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. As Canada's first dedicated cancer hospital, it opened of ...
and then in London at St Thomas's.
she then continued her research at the
Royal Postgraduate Medical School
The Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS) was an independent medical school, based primarily at Hammersmith Hospital in west London. In 1988, the school merged with the Institute of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, and in 1997 became part of Imperial ...
(RPGMS),
which later became part of the
Imperial College School of Medicine
Imperial College School of Medicine (ICSM) is the undergraduate medical school of Imperial College London in England, and one of the United Hospitals. It is part of the college's Faculty of Medicine and was formed by the merger of several hist ...
.
Almeida succeeded in identifying viruses that were previously unknown, including—in 1966—a group of viruses that was later named
coronavirus
Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the com ...
,
due to their
crown
A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...
-like appearance.
Her
immune electron microscopy
Immune electron microscopy (more often called immunoelectron microscopy) is the equivalent of immunofluorescence, but it uses electron microscopy rather than light microscopy. Immunoelectron microscopy identifies and localizes a molecule of inter ...
(IEM) innovations and insights contributed to research related to the diagnosis of
hepatitis B
Hepatitis B is an infectious disease caused by the ''Hepatitis B virus'' (HBV) that affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. It can cause both acute and chronic infection.
Many people have no symptoms during an initial infection. Fo ...
,
HIV
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...
, and
rubella
Rubella, also known as German measles or three-day measles, is an infection caused by the rubella virus. This disease is often mild, with half of people not realizing that they are infected. A rash may start around two weeks after exposure and ...
, among other viral diseases. Her electron micrographs continue to be included in virology review textbooks, decades after she produced them.
Early life
Almeida was born on 5 October 1930 at 10 Duntroon Street,
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
, to Jane Dalziel (née Steven) and Harry Leonard Hart, a bus driver.
In 1940, her 6-year-old brother died of
diphtheria
Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...
, perhaps leading to her interest in diseases.
In 1947, when she was 16, Almeida left Whitehill Secondary school, and despite her academic strength, winning the science prize,
her family did not have the financial means to allow her to attend university at that time.
She began working as a
histopathology
Histopathology (compound of three Greek words: ''histos'' "tissue", πάθος ''pathos'' "suffering", and -λογία '' -logia'' "study of") refers to the microscopic examination of tissue in order to study the manifestations of disease. Spe ...
technician, first, at the
Glasgow Royal Infirmary
The Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) is a large teaching hospital. With a capacity of around 1,000 beds, the hospital campus covers an area of around , and straddles the Townhead and Dennistoun districts on the north-eastern fringe of the city cen ...
, and was then recruited by a former colleague, Dr. John WS Blacklock
to do similar work at
St Bartholomew's Hospital
St Bartholomew's Hospital, commonly known as Barts, is a teaching hospital located in the City of London. It was founded in 1123 and is currently run by Barts Health NHS Trust.
History
Early history
Barts was founded in 1123 by Rahere (died ...
, where she worked until 1954.
She married Enriques Rosalio (Henry) Almeida in 1954; they later divorced.
Career
Ontario Cancer Institute
In 1954, Almeida was hired for a newly opened position as
electron microscopy
An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...
technician at the
Ontario Cancer Institute
The Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI) is the research division of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, affiliated to the University Health Network of the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. As Canada's first dedicated cancer hospital, it opened of ...
,
where she worked for ten years.
While working as an electron microscopist, she and her Cancer Institute colleagues produced a series of studies applying negative staining to clinical problems.
In 1963, Almeida was the first of three authors of an article in the journal ''
Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
'', in which they identified virus-like particles in cancer patients' blood.
In the same year, she published her research in which she "negatively stained aggregates of antigen...and antibody" with the electron microscope.
Almeida's sense of humour arose in an ode to electron microscopy, and the symmetrical structure of
coronavirus
Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the com ...
(with an apology to poet,
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
).
“Virus, virus shining bright,
In the phosphotungstic night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fivefold symmetry.”
St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
By 1964, Almeida had earned her
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...
(Sc.D.), based on publications of her research at the Ontario Cancer Institute and at St Thomas's on electron micrographic research of antibodies.
In 1964, Tony Waterson, who had just been appointed as chair of microbiology at St Thomas's, met Almeida while visiting Toronto, and recruited her to join his research team
at one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in the United Kingdom—
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
's
St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London was one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in the UK. The school was absorbed to form part of King's College London.
History
It was part of one of the oldest hospitals in London, ...
, now part of
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
. At St Thomas's, she worked on
hepatitis B virus
''Hepatitis B virus'' (HBV) is a partially double-stranded DNA virus, a species of the genus ''Orthohepadnavirus'' and a member of the ''Hepadnaviridae'' family of viruses. This virus causes the disease hepatitis B.
Disease
Despite there bein ...
and the
cold viruses.
In 1966, Waterson and Almeida collaborated with the physician and director of research on the common cold, David Tyrrell, who was working on a new organ culture system. Tyrrell's team had been attempting to detect the presence of
rhinoviruses in tissue cultures of cells that they had produced in the lab. They wanted to detect a specific respiratory virus they called B814. The Swedish professor Bertil Hoorn could make all Tyrrell's respiratory viruses in organ cultures of cells from the human airway in the laboratory, except for virus B814. This organ culture system meant they did not have to depend on human volunteers to do research on these viruses. They wanted a reliable method to detect virus B814.
In the book ''Cold Wars'' (2002), which Tyrrell wrote with Michael Fielder, he described how when he first met Almeida she seemed to be extending the range of the electron microscope to new limits.
According to Tyrrell, prior to her innovative work, it was generally accepted that viruses had to be concentrated and purified to detect them with the electron microscope. When she told Tyrrell that she could "find virus particles" in the organ cultures that they had collected, with her "new, improved techniques", he was skeptical.
Tyrrell's team sent samples to Almeida in London. These included a sample prepared with the B814 virus, along with samples infected with influenza and herpes, which were well-known. When she examined the samples through her microscope grids, "she recognized all the known viruses, and her pictures revealed their structure beautifully. But more importantly, she also saw virus particles in the B814 sample."
she told Tyrrell that the B814 specimens had reminded her of particles she had previously studied in a "disease called infectious bronchitis of chickens" and in another disease—"mouse hepatitis liver inflammation." Almeida's papers on these had been rejected because the referees considered her
electron micrograph
A micrograph or photomicrograph is a photograph or digital image taken through a microscope or similar device to show a magnified image of an object. This is opposed to a macrograph or photomacrograph, an image which is also taken on a mi ...
s to be "bad pictures" of known influenza virus particles. Almeida told him she now knew that these "three viruses were something quite new."
According to Tyrrell, once Almeida had identified the previously unrecognised group of viruses, they met in Waterson's office, to decide on its name. The viruses appeared to be surrounded by a "halo", which in Latin is "corona", and the name "coronavirus" was born.
In 1966, she and Tyrrell wrote that "The particles are pleomorphic, in the size range 800 to 1200 Å, and are surrounded by a distinct 200 Å long fringe. They are indistinguishable from the particles of avian infectious bronchitis, the only virus previously known to have this morphology."
Royal Postgraduate Medical School of London (RPGMS)
Three years later, in 1967, when Waterson took a position at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPGMS), Almeida also moved to begin work there.
In 1968, Almeida published an article in ''
Journal of General Virology
''Journal of General Virology'' is a not-for-profit peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Microbiology Society. The journal was established in 1967 and covers research into animal viruses, insect viruses, plants viruses, fungal viruses, ...
'', on "avian infectious bronchitis virus".
In 1971, using her immune electronmicroscopy technique, Almeida made the landmark discovery that the
hepatitis B
Hepatitis B is an infectious disease caused by the ''Hepatitis B virus'' (HBV) that affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. It can cause both acute and chronic infection.
Many people have no symptoms during an initial infection. Fo ...
virus had "two immunologically distinct components"—an "outer coat and a small inner component".
Wellcome Institute
Almeida spent her final years of her professional career at the
Wellcome Institute
The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (1968–1999) was a London centre for the study and teaching of medical history. It consisted of the Wellcome Library and an Academic Unit. The former was and is a world-class library collection ...
before she retired.
While working for Wellcome, she was named on several patents in the field of imaging viruses.
Major contributions
In their 2013 book entitled ''To Catch a Virus'', John Booss and Marilyn J. August describe how Almeida "played a crucial role in adapting the electron microscope to clinical diagnostic virology work."
[In the chapter entitled "Imaging viruses and tagging their antigens" in John Booss and Marilyn J. August's 2013 ''To Catch a Virus'', they describe the how "refinements in electron microscopy (EM)...greatly expanded the understanding of the structure and replication of viruses and facilitated the application of EM to viral diagnosis. The refinements included thin sectioning, negative staining, and immunoelectron microscopy (IEM) developed for clinical diagnostic work. The use of EM in discovering the viral causes of acute gastroenteritis and infectious hepatitis are then considered." ASM: "This chapter first examines the refinements in electron microscopy (EM) that greatly expanded the understanding of the structure and replication of viruses and facilitated the application of EM to viral diagnosis. The refinements included thin sectioning, negative staining, and immunoelectron microscopy (IEM) developed for clinical diagnostic work. The use of EM in discovering the viral causes of acute gastroenteritis and infectious hepatitis are then considered."]
Before Almeida's work with Anthony Peter Waterson in the 1960s, very few improvements had been made on the initial 1941 "proof of principle aggregation of virus by virus-specific antibody observable by
lectron microscope (EI)" In 1963, she pioneered a technique in
immune electron microscopy
Immune electron microscopy (more often called immunoelectron microscopy) is the equivalent of immunofluorescence, but it uses electron microscopy rather than light microscopy. Immunoelectron microscopy identifies and localizes a molecule of inter ...
(IEM), to better visualise viruses by using
antibodies
An antibody (Ab), also known as an immunoglobulin (Ig), is a large, Y-shaped protein used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as pathogenic bacteria and viruses. The antibody recognizes a unique molecule of the ...
to aggregate them.
In the 1960s, she and Waterson were using
negative staining In microscopy, negative staining is an established method, often used in diagnostic microscopy, for contrasting a thin specimen with an optically opaque fluid. In this technique, the background is stained, leaving the actual specimen untouched ...
for the EM of viruses—a technique that was both rapid and simple—and provided excellent detailed observations of viral morphology, which had revolutionized the electron microscopy of viruses overnight.
In 1966, using her new techniques, Almeida was able to identify a group of "previously uncharacterised human respiratory viruses", while collaborating with
David Tyrrell,
then director of the
Common Cold Research Centre in
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
in
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
.
Tyrrell suggested calling the new group "coronaviruses". The coronavirus family of viruses now includes the
SARS virus
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), the first identified strain of the SARS coronavirus species, ''seve ...
and the
SARS-CoV2
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a p ...
virus that causes
Coronavirus disease 2019
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
.
In 1967, using the IEM aggregation method, Almeida produced the first visualization of rubella virus.
In retirement
After taking early retirement
from Wellcome Institute, Almeida returned in an advisory role at St. Thomas's in the late 1980s when she helped produce micrographs of the
HIV virus
The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...
,
where
Aberdeen
Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...
professor of bacteriology
Hugh Pennington was also then attached.
Almeida's publications include the 1979 ''Manual for rapid laboratory viral diagnosis'' for the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
.
Almeida also trained as a yoga teacher and became involved in her second husband Philip Gardner's antique business (he died in 1994).
Legacy
At the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPGMS), in 1970, Almeida taught
Albert Kapikian
Albert Zaven Kapikian (1930–2014) was an Armenian-American virologist who developed the first licensed vaccine against rotavirus, the most common cause of severe diarrhea in infants. He was awarded the Sabin Gold Medal for his pioneering work on ...
the technique of immune electron microscopy (IEM). Kapikian, who was visiting for six months from the United States
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
, used her techniques in the identification of a cause of non-bacterial gastroenteritis—the
Norwalk virus
Norovirus, sometimes referred to as the winter vomiting disease, is the most common cause of gastroenteritis. Infection is characterized by non-bloody diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach pain. Fever or headaches may also occur. Symptoms usually devel ...
, now known as the Norovirus.
Almeida's work received new attention during the early months of the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. Her little-known story was first published by the ''Herald'' in Scotland on 7 March, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'' on 19 May 2020.
According to professor of bacteriology Hugh Pennington, Chinese scientists credited Almeida's work, including techniques she developed, with the early identification of
.
after her marriage on 11 December 1954 to Enrique Rosalio (Henry) Almeida (1913–1993), a Venezuelan artist with whom she had a daughter, Joyce.
Her daughter Joyce, a psychiatrist, has two daughters.
whom she had married in 1979, and who died in 1994.
In 2007, Almeida passed away in Bexhill from a heart attack.
was named after June Almeida in September 2020.