June Almeida: The Scientist Who Discovered the First Human Coronavirus and Her Story

Throughout history, humanity has fought many epidemic diseases. In 2020, it faces an outbreak that has spread rapidly and caused thousands of deaths: the novel coronavirus outbreak. Although most coronaviruses that infect humans cause mild upper respiratory tract infections, 2 different coronaviruses had recently caused deadly outbreaks: SARS in 2002 and MERS in 2012. Now the novel coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 has caused the COVID-19 Pandemic. The virus that researchers around the world are studying and trying to understand—that is, the first human coronavirus—was discovered by June Almeida, the daughter of a Scottish bus driver.

June Almeida was one of the pioneering scientists in virus imaging, whose work has received renewed attention during the current outbreak.

COVID-19 is a new disease, but Dr. Almeida first identified the coronaviruses that cause it in 1964 in her laboratory at St Thomas Hospital in London.

The virologist, born June Hart in 1930, grew up in a tenement near Alexandra Park in northeast Glasgow. She received little formal schooling, but took a job as a laboratory technician in histopathology at Glasgow Royal Hospital. She later moved to London to advance her career and married the Venezuelan artist Enriques Almeida in 1954.

Common Cold Research

The couple and their young daughter moved to Toronto, Canada. According to medical writer George Winter, Dr. Almeida helped develop the electron microscope at the Ontario Cancer Institute, where she demonstrated her exceptional abilities.

She pioneered a method using antibodies to collect viruses and better visualize them.

Dr. Almeida’s scientific expertise was recognized in 1964 while she was working at St Thomas Hospital in London. She began collaborating with Dr. Tavid Tyrell, who was researching the common cold virus in Salisbury, England. Dr. Tyrell was trying to grow cold-related viruses from nasal wash samples taken from volunteers. He had succeeded in growing many viruses in cell culture.

A nasal wash sample taken from a primary school child in 1960 particularly interested them. Viruses from this sample caused cold symptoms but could not be grown in cell culture. At the same time, viral growth was observed in organ cultures taken from volunteers. Dr. Tyrell wondered whether these viruses could be seen with an electron microscope and sent the samples to Dr. Almeida.

Dr. Almeida identified virus particles in the samples that resembled the influenza virus. In this way, coronavirus was identified for the first time in the world. Science sometimes requires perseverance to notice the details. Thanks to Dr. Almeida, we understand coronaviruses better and develop treatments and vaccines. We extend our heartfelt thanks to all the scientists who help us love science. Dr. Almeida identified what became known as the first human coronavirus. Writer Winter says that Dr. Almeida had previously seen similar particles while studying mouse hepatitis and infectious bronchitis in chickens. However, he said that her paper submitted to a peer-reviewed journal was rejected because the reviewers thought the images were merely poor pictures of influenza virus particles.

The new discovery of the B814 strain was described in the British Medical Journal in 1965, and the first photographs of what they had seen were published two years later in the Journal of General Virology.

According to Mr. Winter, Dr. Tyrrell and Dr. Almeida, together with Prof. Tony Waterson of St Thomas, named it coronavirus because of the crown or halo surrounding it in the viral image. Dr. Almeida later worked at the Postgraduate Medical School in London and obtained her doctorate. She ended her career at the Wellcome Institute, where she received several patents in virus imaging. After leaving Wellcome, she became a yoga teacher, but returned to virology as an adviser in the late 1980s when she helped take new photographs of the HIV virus.

June Almeida died in 2007 at the age of 77. 13 years after her death, she is finally receiving the recognition she deserves as a pioneer whose work has helped accelerate understanding of the virus now spreading around the world.

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