In 1963, June Almeida (June Almeida) worked at the Cancer Research Institute of Ontario, Canada, and was responsible for identifying and photographing virus particle images with the then extremely advanced electron microscope.
The earliest person to recognize the human coronavirus was a female, June Almeida, a British virologist and virus imaging expert. She was born in Scotland and her father was a local bus driver. She started working and earning a living after graduating from high school at the age of 16.
Later, Almey reached a pioneer in the field of virus imaging technology. It is for this reason that this long-forgotten name has returned to the world’s attention when the 2019 New Crown Epidemic raged.
The new coronavirus is a new strain that has never been found in humans before and belongs to a large coronavirus family. The first human coronavirus was discovered by Almeida under her microscope in 1964. The laboratory where she works is at St Thomas Hospital in London.
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Cold virus
Almeida was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in the northeast of 1930. After graduating from junior high school, she no longer received formal school education, but went to the Glasgow Royal Hospital to find a job as a laboratory histopathology technician.
A few years later, she moved from Scotland to London, and in 1954 married Venezuelan artist Enriques Almeida (Enriques Almeida). After having a daughter, she decided to immigrate to Toronto, Canada.
According to the writer George Winters, Almeida mastered excellent electron microscope application skills at the Ontario Cancer Institute.
She also invented a method of virus imaging: using antibodies to polymerize the virus.
Winters told the BBC that Almeida’s talents were recognized by her British counterparts. She was “tempted” to return to China in 1964 and worked at the St. Thomas Hospital Medical College in London.
By the way, the current British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was infected with the New Coronary Pneumonia virus and was treated and cured in this hospital.
After Almeida returned to the UK, she began working with Dr. David Tyrrell. Dr. Tyrol chaired a cold virus laboratory in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Dr. Tyrol and his team found that during the study of volunteers’ nasal wash samples, many viruses related to colds and colds can be cultivated in the laboratory, but not all.
Among the many samples, there is a sample taken in 1960, a nasal rinsing liquid from a boarding school student in Surrey, southern England, labeled B814.
The research team found that they can make volunteers have cold symptoms, but they can’t culture the virus. What is more confusing is that the volunteers can clearly see the cold virus survive in the human tissue.
Dr. Tyrol wondered whether he could see the virus under the electron microscope.
They sent some samples to the laboratory in Almeida, London, and asked her to help. She saw the virus particles under the microscope, a bit like the flu virus but not exactly the same.
What she saw was actually the first human coronavirus.
Found to be rejected
Winters said that Dr. Almeida had actually seen this virus particle before studying the murine hepatitis virus and chicken bronchitis virus.
However, the paper she submitted to the professional journal was rejected in the peer review process, on the grounds that the evaluator believed that the virus image she provided was “just a picture of influenza virus particles with poor imaging quality.”
The paper based on the virus particles found in the B814 sample was published in the British Medical Journal in 1965, and the images of the virus particles she saw were published in the Journal of General Virology two years later.
According to Winters, the virus is called Coronavirus by Professor Tyrol, Almeida, and St. Thomas Hospital Dean Professor Tony Waterson, because of the coronal projections around the virus particles.
Almeida was later transferred to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (now Imperial College of Medicine) in London to continue her research work, where she obtained a doctorate.
Her career ended at the Wellcome Research Institute in the United Kingdom, during which time she obtained several patents in the field of virus imaging.
After leaving the Wellcome Research Institute, Almeida switched to a yoga instructor until AIDS began to spread in the 1980s. She resumed her career as a consultant and participated in the identification and shooting of HIV images.
Joan Almeida died in 2007 at the age of 77.
As a virus imaging expert, she is known as the first person to see a coronavirus, worthy of the name.
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