The Science Museum of the University of Navarra has launched a new video of "Women in Science"an audiovisual series that highlights the lives of leading women scientists who are unknown to the general public. This time the protagonist is June Almeida, a laboratory technician who discovered coronaviruses.

June Almeida was born in Glasgow (Scotland) on October 5, 1930 to a humble family. Although she was a brilliant student, she had to drop out of school at the age of 16 due to financial problems. Almeida's first job was as a laboratory technician at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, where she specialized in the operation of the electron microscope. In 1963 she emigrated to Canada to work at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto where she began to develop new microscopy techniques and publish a number of scientific papers.

June Almeida began to be recognized in the academic world and accepted a professional opportunity to work with Dr. David Tyrrell at St Thomas' in London with whom she would eventually discover coronaviruses. It was in 1967 that Almeida developed a new method for viewing viruses by electron microscopy. This new technique consisted of using labeled antibodies - which bound to the viral particles - and thus being able to see them under the microscope. The images the researchers obtained reminded them of the solar corona. Curiously, the first photographs of coronaviruses were not published until two years later, as they were initially considered to be images of flu virus particles.

Almeida eventually received his PhD from the London Graduate Medical School and finished his career at the British Wellcome Institute, where he was involved in several patents in the field of virus imaging.  

A woman of reference in the field of virology

June Almeida was a pioneer in virus identification, diagnosis and imaging, and the first person to see coronaviruses using microscopy techniques that she developed. That technique, simple and novel, revolutionized the field of virology. June Almeida was 34 years old.

Almeida retired from virology in 1985, but always remained active. In the late 1980s, he helped publish some of the first high-quality images of the HIV virus. He passed away in 2007 at the age of 77.

Even today, researchers still use her techniques for virus identification by electron microscopy. More than fifty years after she first saw coronaviruses, Almeida's work is more relevant today than ever.

The "Women in Science" video project is part of the Science Museum's STEM strategy to make the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects more attractive, especially to girls and young women.