Robert Webster (virologist)

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. His group was in the early 1960s, the first indicating that Reassortierungen lead to the emergence of new pandemic strains of the virus and not - as previously thought - an antigenic drift, ie mutations of the virus. This he did also make a significant contribution to understanding what proportion have wild birds in the spread of new influenza virus strains. Became internationally known Robert G. Webster through his research on the spread of influenza A H5N1 virus, the causative agent of so-called bird flu H5N1.

Life

Robert Webster studied the early 1950s at the University of Otago and graduated there in 1955 his first cycle with a Bachelor degree in microbiology. In 1957 he acquired the same place and in the same subject the master title. He then worked as a virologist for the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture until 1959. After a change to the Australian National University him the doctoral degree ( Ph.D. ) was awarded in 1962 there microbiology in the tray.

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

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

Robert Webster is a member of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Society for Virology, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an honorary member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and other learned societies in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.