Fellow

Jeffrey Almond is Vice President Global Research and External R&D for sanofi pasteur. He has been living in France for the past 6 years but has spent most of his career in the UK where he has made a major contribution to medical sciences. He was lecturer at the University of Leicester from 1979-85 and Professor of Microbiology at the University of Reading 1985-99. He has published extensively, especially in the field of Virology. His scientific contributions include the first demonstration that a single gene can determine host range – a finding highly relevant to understanding evolution of new pandemic strains; completion of the genetic map of an avian influenza virus, and the first detailed description of the proteins of Influenza B virus. He has also made major contributions to our understanding of polio virus and its vaccines. In 1985 as a young academic Almond won the Fleming Award for outstanding contribution to microbiological research by a young microbiologist in the UK and the pace and extent of his contributions have not diminished. In his current role he is responsible for the scientific rationale underpinning approximately 30 vaccine projects covering viruses, bacteria and eukaryotic parasites. Jeffrey Almond’s knowledge of virology has been of benefit to a wide variety of learned societies and to the community as a whole. During the BSE crisis he served as coordinator of the BBSRC’s Research programme on the Spongiform Encephalopathies and was a member of the Government’s Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee (SEAC). He is an Elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and in 1999 was awarded the Ivanovsky Medal for “Contributions to the Development of Virology” by The Scientific Council of Virology of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. We welcome him to this Academy.