Robert Webster
Encyclopedia
Robert Gordon Webster (born 7 May 1932), in Balclutha
, New Zealand
, leading avian influenza expert, is the virologist who in 1957 was the first to announce a link between human flu
and bird flu. He correctly posited that pandemic
strains of flu arise from genes in flu virus strains in nonhumans; for example, via a reassortment of genetic
segments (antigenic shift
) between virus
es in humans and nonhumans (especially bird
s) rather than by mutation
s (antigenic drift
) in annual human flu
strains.
from University of Otago, New Zealand
in 1955, his MSc
at the same university in 1957, and his PhD
from the Australian National University
, Canberra
, Australia
, in 1962.
He worked as a virologist with the New Zealand Department of Agriculture in 1958 - 1959 before being appointed Research Fellow at the Department of Microbiology at ANU's John Curtin Medical School, for 1964 - 1966. He moved to U.S.
in 1969 where he became a member of both the Department of Microbiology and the Department of Immunology at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
in Memphis, Tennessee
, a city where he has lived ever since and has held many research posts.
Webster has been awarded membership of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
, and the honour of fellow of both the Royal Societies
of New Zealand and London. Other memberships he enjoys are of the American Society for Microbiology
, American Society for Virology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science
, as well as being a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He also heads the World Health Organisation (WHO) collaborating laboratory on animal influenza.
Another danger that Webster has uncovered is the duck. Ducks, while capable of catching and transmitting the avian flu virus through contact with chickens, seldom sicken and die from the exposure. Being alive and quite healthy, the ducks are then capable of spreading the virus to other areas.
He "is a world-renowned virologist, an expert in the structure and function of influenza virus proteins and the development of new vaccines and antivirals. He has spent more than 50 years studying influenza, and was the first to isolate and identify Asian lineage HPAI A(H5N1)
."
Balclutha, New Zealand
Balclutha is a town in Otago, it lies towards the end of the Clutha River on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is about halfway between Dunedin and Invercargill on the Main South Line railway, State Highway 1 and the Southern Scenic Route...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, leading avian influenza expert, is the virologist who in 1957 was the first to announce a link between human flu
Human flu
Human flu is a term used to refer to influenza cases caused by Orthomyxoviridae that are endemic to human populations . It is an arbitrary categorization scheme, and is not associated with phylogenetics-based taxonomy...
and bird flu. He correctly posited that pandemic
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
strains of flu arise from genes in flu virus strains in nonhumans; for example, via a reassortment of genetic
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
segments (antigenic shift
Antigenic shift
Antigenic shift is the process by which two or more different strains of a virus, or strains of two or more different viruses, combine to form a new subtype having a mixture of the surface antigens of the two or more original strains...
) between virus
Virus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
es in humans and nonhumans (especially bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s) rather than by mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
s (antigenic drift
Antigenic drift
The immune system recognizes viruses when antigens on the surfaces of virus particles bind to immune receptors that are specific for these antigens. This is similar to a lock recognizing a key. After an infection, the body produces many more of these virus-specific receptors, which prevent...
) in annual human flu
Human flu
Human flu is a term used to refer to influenza cases caused by Orthomyxoviridae that are endemic to human populations . It is an arbitrary categorization scheme, and is not associated with phylogenetics-based taxonomy...
strains.
Background
Robert Webster grew up on a New Zealand farm, and studied microbiology on leaving school, gaining his BScBSC
BSC is a three-letter abbreviation that may refer to:Science and technology* Bachelor of Science , an undergraduate degree* Base Station Controller, part of a mobile phone network; see: Base Station subsystem...
from University of Otago, New Zealand
University of Otago
The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010.The university has New Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it...
in 1955, his MSc
MSC
- Computers:* Mario Strikers Charged* Microsoft Common Console Document, file for the Microsoft Management Console* Microelectronics Support Centre* Microsoft Corporation* MIDI Show Control* Message Sequence Chart...
at the same university in 1957, and his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
, Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, in 1962.
He worked as a virologist with the New Zealand Department of Agriculture in 1958 - 1959 before being appointed Research Fellow at the Department of Microbiology at ANU's John Curtin Medical School, for 1964 - 1966. He moved to U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1969 where he became a member of both the Department of Microbiology and the Department of Immunology at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, founded in 1962, is a leading pediatric treatment and research facility focused on children's catastrophic diseases. It is located in Memphis, Tennessee. It is a nonprofit medical corporation chartered as a 501 tax-exempt organization under IRS regulations.In...
in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, a city where he has lived ever since and has held many research posts.
Accomplishments
Robert G. Webster holds the Rose Marie Thomas Chair in Virology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He is also director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on the Ecology of Influenza Viruses in Lower Animals and Birds, the world's only laboratory designed to study influenza at the animal-human interface. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal Society of New Zealand, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. In December 2002, he was presented with the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Infectious Diseases Research.Webster has been awarded membership of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, and the honour of fellow of both the Royal Societies
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
of New Zealand and London. Other memberships he enjoys are of the American Society for Microbiology
American Society for Microbiology
The American Society for Microbiology is a professional organization for scientists who study viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa as well as other aspects of microbiology. Microbiology is the study of organisms too small to be seen with the naked eye and which must be viewed with a...
, American Society for Virology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
, as well as being a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He also heads the World Health Organisation (WHO) collaborating laboratory on animal influenza.
Work on general influenza
Webster's major discoveries relating to influenza include the likelihood that avians were most likely the culprit in other flu outbreaks. His work is also responsible for the method of human influenza vaccination that is commonly used. Before Webster and his colleagues separated the influenza virus into different particles, the entire influenza virus was injected into a patient as a vaccine - now, only certain parts of the virus are necessary to create the same response, lessening side effects of the vaccine.H5N1 Work
Webster's work with the avian flu can be said to have sprung from a beach walk with fellow researcher Graeme Laver, on which the men noticed a large number of birds dead along the shoreline. Webster wondered whether it was possible that the birds had died from the avian flu, and subsequently traveled to an island to take samples from hundreds of birds. This led to more trips, and eventually Webster discovered a link between the avian flu and the human flu. This link meant one thing to Webster: that it is possible for the avian and human viruses to combine, creating a new virus that humans would have no antibodies to. In an interview with NBC, he said that when he first reestablished there was a link, few paid attention to what he saw as a great danger. He was quoted as recalling that "The veterinarians said, 'Not a problem.' The medical people said, 'Not a problem.'" However, Webster theorizes that the only event that has to occur to begin a flu pandemic is the mixing of avian and human flu strains in the same mammalian cell - most likely in a pig. Pigs are similar enough in genetic makeup to humans that they are susceptible to the human flu; also, in many areas, pigs come in close contact with chickens or ducks, making it likely that they will catch the avian flu.Another danger that Webster has uncovered is the duck. Ducks, while capable of catching and transmitting the avian flu virus through contact with chickens, seldom sicken and die from the exposure. Being alive and quite healthy, the ducks are then capable of spreading the virus to other areas.
He "is a world-renowned virologist, an expert in the structure and function of influenza virus proteins and the development of new vaccines and antivirals. He has spent more than 50 years studying influenza, and was the first to isolate and identify Asian lineage HPAI A(H5N1)
H5N1
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as "bird flu", A or simply H5N1, is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species...
."
Honors and Awards
- 1989 Fellow of the Royal Society
- 2010 Royal Society Leeuwenhoek Lecture Prize
Further reading
- Dr. Robert G. Webster @ St. Jude Children's Research HospitalSt. Jude Children's Research HospitalSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital, founded in 1962, is a leading pediatric treatment and research facility focused on children's catastrophic diseases. It is located in Memphis, Tennessee. It is a nonprofit medical corporation chartered as a 501 tax-exempt organization under IRS regulations.In...
- VIDEO: Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching Michael Greger, MD, speaks at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
- The ISI CV on Dr Webster
- Transcript: Avian Influenza: Current Status and Potential Impact
- News article: Experts fear bird flu in Africa
- St. Jude Robert G. Webster, PhD - Member, St. Jude Faculty - Rose Marie Thomas Chair
- COMMITTEE ON MICROBIAL THREATS TO HEALTH IN THE 21ST CENTURY
- American Scientist short bio
- UVM Webster is Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center on the Ecology of Influenza Viruses in Lower Animals and Birds Professor of Excellence, University of Hong-Kong
- CBC Interview
Selected publications by Robert Webster
- CDC article Influenza: An Emerging Disease published in Emerging Infectious Diseases - vol. 4 no. 3 - July September 1998
- Journal of Virology, July 2000, p. 6309-6315, Vol. 74, No. 14 article Characterization of the Influenza A Virus Gene Pool in Avian Species in Southern China: Was H6N1 a Derivative or a Precursor of H5N1?
- Science Mag article Perspectives:VIROLOGY:Enhanced: A Molecular Whodunit - in Science - 7 September 2001 - 1773-1775
- American Scientist article The world is teetering on the edge of a pandemic that could kill a large fraction of the human population in 2003
- CDC articles H5N1 Outbreaks and Enzootic Influenza published in Emerging Infectious Diseases - vol. 12 no. 01 - January 2006
- PNAS article Establishment of multiple sublineages of H5N1 influenza virus in Asia: Implications for pandemic control published online before print 10 February 2006, 10.1073/pnas.0511120103 - PNAS - 21 February 2006 - vol. 103 - no. 8 - 2845-2850