Robert Webster (virologist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Gordon Webster (born May 7, 1932 in Balclutha , New Zealand ) is an American virologist and an expert in the field of research on influenza viruses. In the early 1960s, his working group was the first to point out that reassortment leads to the appearance of new pandemic virus strains and not - as previously suspected - an antigen drift , i.e. mutations of the viruses. In this way, he also made a significant contribution to the understanding of the role wild birds play in the spread of new strains of influenza virus. Robert G. Webster became internationally known for his research on the spread of the influenza A virus H5N1 , the causative agent of the so-called H5N1 bird flu .

Life

Robert Webster studied at the University of Otago in the early 1950s , where he completed his first degree in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in microbiology . In 1957, he obtained his master's degree in the same place and in the same subject . He then worked as a virologist for the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture until 1959. After moving to the Australian National University , he was awarded a doctorate ( Ph. D. ) in microbiology there in 1962 .

This was followed by a research stay at the Institute for Epidemiology of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan (1962/63), and from 1964 to 1967 Webster worked again at the Institute for Microbiology at the John Curtin Medical School at the Australian National University.

In 1968 Robert Webster moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States , where he has been a professor at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital ever since. Since 1975 he has also been the director of a research institute of the World Health Organization (the WHO Collaborating Laboratory on the Ecology of Influenza Viruses in Lower Animals and Birds ), a globally unique facility for research into host change in influenza viruses.

Robert Webster is a member of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Society for Virology , a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an honorary member of the US National Academy of Sciences and other learned societies in Great Britain and New Zealand . In 2010 he received the Leeuwenhoek Medal from the Royal Society .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Apoorva Mandavilli: Profiles: Robert Webster. In: Nature Medicine . Volume 9, pp. 1445, 2003, doi: 10.1038 / nm1203-1445
personal data
SURNAME Webster, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Webster, Robert Gordon; Webster, Rob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American virologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Balclutha