Christopher Andrewes

Sir Christopher Howard Andrewes ( born June 7, 1896 in London, † December 31, 1987 in Wiltshire ) was a British virologist.

Andrewes went after two years at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City in 1927 to the Medical Research Council ( National Institute of Medical Research ) in Hampstead, north London, where he conducted research on tumor viruses in animals.

Andrewes was involved in the discovery of the influenza virus. In 1933, he was with his colleagues Patrick Laidlaw and Wilson Smith the human flu virus to ferrets. In several years of work from 1946 to about 1960, he continued working for the isolation of influenza virus with colleagues. They also isolated in 1960 several of the viruses that are responsible for common colds. From 1952, he was Deputy Director of the National Institute of Medical Research. In 1961, he went into retirement.

Andrewes was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1939 ), Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians ( FRCP ) and the Royal College of Pathologists. In 1979 he received the Robert Koch Medal. In 1964 he became a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1961 he was knighted.

He was amateur entomologist. Andrewes was married and had three children.

Writings

• The natural history of viruses, W.W.Norton 1967