June Almeida, PhD, was a virologist who pioneered virus imaging and identification. Almeida left school in 1947 at age 16 and started as an entry-level lab technician in histopathology at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. After marrying in 1954, she moved to Canada and started working at the Ontario Cancer Institute as an electron microscopy technician. She pioneered immune electron microscopy, which uses antibodies to clump viruses together, allowing the viruses to be seen more clearly. This technique resulted in visualizations of the rubella virus, Norovirus, hepatitis A and B. Almeida was the first scientist to get a good image of a member of the coronavirus family in 1966. On the basis of this work, the University of London awarded her a Doctor of Science in 1971. Today, most virology textbooks contain her electron micrographs of viruses.
