Thursday 29 March 2018

VIROLOGY TIMELINE

1901 Walter Reed discovers the cause of yellow fever; Yellow fever virus is the first human virus described.

1903 Rabies virus is described in humans.


1908 Vilhelm Ellerman and Oluf Bang discover a virus causing leukosis in chickens.

1911 Peyton Rous discovers a cancer-causing virus in chickens.

1915 Frederick Twort discovers bacterial viruses; Félix d’Herelle names bacterial viruses bacteria phage (bacteria eaters).

 1918 The Influenza virus pandemic (the virus was not identified until 1933).

1935 Wendell Stanley makes a crystal from Tobacco mosaic virus and concludes that viruses are made of protein.

 1939 First image of a virus, Tobacco mosaic virus, by electron microscopy (Helmut Ruska).

1945 Salvador Luria and Alfred Hershey demonstrate that bacterial viruses mutate.

1949 John Enders demonstrates that Poliovirus can be grown in culture.


1950 The World Health Organization launches a program to eradicate smallpox through vaccination.

1952 Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase demonstrate that DNA is the genetic material, using bacteria and viruses.

1952 Jonas Salk develops polio vaccine by growing attenuated virus in culture.

1953 The first human Rhinovirus is described (Rhinoviruses cause the common cold).

1955 Rosalind Franklin describes the structure of Tobacco mosaic virus.

1956 RNA is first described as a genetic material in Tobacco mosaic virus.

1964 Howard Temin proposes that retroviruses replicate by converting RNA to DNA.

1970 Howard Temin and David Baltimore discover the enzyme reverse transcriptase, which converts RNA to DNA in retroviruses.

 1976 First outbreak of Ebola described in Zaire.

1976 First RNA virus genome is sequenced (bacteria phage MS2).

 1978 First cDNA clone of a virus that was infectious (Qβ bacteria phage).

1979 Smallpox is declared eradicated.

1980 First human retrovirus discovered (HTLV).

 1981 First infectious cDNA clone of a mammalian virus (Poliovirus).

1983 The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) revolutionizes molecular detection of viruses.

 1983 Human immunodeficiency virus is discovered as the cause of AIDS.

 1986 First virus-resistant transgenic plants (tobacco, Tobacco mosaic virus).


1998 Discovery of gene silencing as an antiviral response.

2001 The complete sequence of the human genome is published and shown to be about 11% retrovirus sequences.

 2001 First viral metagenomics study.

2003 Giant viruses discovered.

2006 Development of the vaccine for human Papillomavirus, the first vaccine against a human cancer.

2011 Rindepest virus declared eradicated.

 2014 A 30,000-year-old virus from permafrost is still infectious in amoebas.

 2014 Worst outbreak of Ebola virusto date in West Africa.


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