Robert Gordon Webster (born 5 July 1932 in Balclutha, New Zealand) is an

avian influenza Avian influenza, known informally as avian flu or bird flu, is a variety of influenza caused by viruses adapted to birds.

authority who correctly posited that

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of in ...

strains of flu arise from genes in flu virus strains in nonhumans; for example, via a reassortment of genetic segments (

antigenic shift Antigenic shift is the process by which two or more different strains of a virus, or strains of two or more different viruses, combine to form a new subtype having a mixture of the surface antigens of the two or more original strains. The term is ...

) between

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsk ...

es in humans and nonhumans (especially

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s) rather than by

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, m ...

s (

antigenic drift Antigenic drift is a kind of genetic variation in viruses, arising from the accumulation of mutations in the virus genes that code for virus-surface proteins that host antibodies recognize. This results in a new strain of virus particles that is ...

) in annual human flu strains.

Background

Robert Webster grew up on a New Zealand farm,"The Flu Hunter" Rosenwald, Michael. ''Smithsonian. '' January 2006. Page 36. and studied microbiology on leaving school, gaining his BSc from University of Otago, New Zealand in 1955, his MSc at the same university in 1957, and his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

from the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

, in 1962. He worked as a virologist with the New Zealand Department of Agriculture in 1958 - 1959 before being appointed research fellow at the Department of Microbiology at ANU's John Curtin Medical School, for 1964 - 1966. He moved to U.S. in 1969 where he became a member of both the Department of Microbiology and the Department of Immunology at the

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is a pediatric treatment and research facility located in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1962, it is a 501(c)(3) designated nonprofit medical corporation which focuses on children's catastrophic diseases, par ...

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mo ...

, a city where he has lived ever since and has held many research posts.

Accomplishments

Robert G. Webster holds the Rose Marie Thomas Chair in Virology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He is also director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on the Ecology of Influenza Viruses in Lower Animals and Birds, the world's only laboratory designed to study influenza at the animal-human interface. He is a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

of London, the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal Society of New Zealand, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. In December 2002, he was presented with the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Infectious Diseases Research. Webster has been awarded membership of the

National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the N ...

, and has been named a fellow of both the Royal Societies of New Zealand and London. He is also a member of the

American Society for Microbiology The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), originally the Society of American Bacteriologists, is a professional organization for scientists who study viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa as well as other aspects of microbiology. It wa ...

American Society for Virology The American Society for Virology (ASV) is an American scientific society serving the community of researchers in virology. The organization was founded in 1981 and was the first scientific society in the world dedicated exclusively to virology. ...

, and the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He heads 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 o ...

(WHO) collaborating laboratory on animal influenza.

Work on general influenza

Webster's major discoveries relating to influenza include the likelihood that avians were most likely the culprit in other flu outbreaks. His work is also responsible for the method of human influenza vaccination that is commonly used. Before Webster and his colleagues separated the influenza virus into different particles, the entire influenza virus was injected into a patient as a vaccine - now, only certain parts of the virus are necessary to create the same response, lessening side effects of the vaccine.

H5N1 Work

Webster's work with the avian flu can be said to have sprung from a beach walk with fellow researcher Graeme Laver, on which the men noticed a large number of birds dead along the shoreline. Webster wondered whether it was possible that the birds had died from the avian flu, and subsequently traveled to an island to take samples from hundreds of birds. This led to more trips, and eventually Webster discovered a link between the avian flu and the human flu. This link meant one thing to Webster: that it is possible for the avian and human viruses to combine, creating a new virus that humans would have no antibodies to. In an interview with NBC, he said that when he first reestablished there was a link, few paid attention to what he saw as a great danger. He was quoted as recalling that "The veterinarians said, 'Not a problem.' The medical people said, 'Not a problem.'" However, Webster theorizes that the only event that has to occur to begin a flu pandemic is the mixing of avian and human flu strains in the same mammalian cell - most likely in a pig. Pigs are similar enough in genetic makeup to humans that they are susceptible to the human flu; also, in many areas, pigs come in close contact with chickens or ducks, making it likely that they will catch the avian flu. Another danger that Webster has uncovered is the duck. Ducks, while capable of catching and transmitting the avian flu virus through contact with chickens, seldom sicken and die from the exposure. Being alive and quite healthy, the ducks are then capable of spreading the virus to other areas.

Honors and awards

* 1989 Fellow of the Royal Society * 2010 Royal Society Leeuwenhoek Lecture Prize

Sources

Selected publications by Robert Webster

article ''Influenza: An Emerging Disease'' published in Emerging Infectious Diseases - vol. 4 no. 3 - July September 1998
Journal of Virology, July 2000, p. 6309-6315, Vol. 74, No. 14
article ''Characterization of the Influenza A Virus Gene Pool in Avian Species in Southern China: Was

H6N1 Influenza A virus subtype H6N1 (A/H6N1), is a subtype of the influenza A virus. It has only infected one person, a woman in Taiwan, who recovered. Known to infect Eurasian teal, it is closely related to subtype H5N1 Influenza A virus subtype ...

a Derivative or a Precursor of H5N1?''
Science Mag
article ''Perspectives:VIROLOGY:Enhanced: A Molecular Whodunit'' - in Science - 7 September 2001 - 1773-1775
American Scientist
article ''The world is teetering on the edge of a pandemic that could kill a large fraction of the human population'' in 2003

articles ''H5N1 Outbreaks and Enzootic Influenza'' published in Emerging Infectious Diseases - vol. 12 no. 01 - January 2006
PNAS
article ''Establishment of multiple sublineages of H5N1 influenza virus in Asia: Implications for pandemic control'' published online before print 10 February 2006, 10.1073/pnas.0511120103 - PNAS - 21 February 2006 - vol. 103 - no. 8 - 2845-2850 {{DEFAULTSORT:Webster, Robert New Zealand biologists New Zealand emigrants to the United States American virologists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1932 births Living people University of Otago alumni Australian National University alumni Influenza researchers New Zealand Fellows of the Royal Society People from Balclutha, New Zealand 20th-century New Zealand scientists