News

Dr Cornelia Büchen-Osmond the manager of the ICTVdB - the Universal Virus database - has moved from Australia, with the database, to Tucson, AZ, USA. Her new address is: Biosphere 2 Center, 32540 S Biosphere Road, PO Box 689, Oracle, AZ 85623, USA. Telephone: + 1 520 896 5096; Fax: +1 520 896 6429; e-mail: buchen@bio2.edu

Dr Paul Kitching currently at the Institute for Animal Health, Pirbright Laboratory, UK takes up the position of Director of the National Centre for Foreign Animal Diseases, a part of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) (agriculture) on June 1^st, 2001. His address will be National Centre for Foreign Animal Diseases, 1015 Arlington Street, Suite T2300, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3E 3M4, CANADA.

Dr Richard Moyer, Chairman, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA will become the next president of the Association of Medical School Microbiology and Immunology Chairs, beginning January 2002.

Dr Massimo Palmarini has taken up a faculty appointment in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology at the University of Georgia, Athens, USA. His address is: Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-7386, USA. Telephone: +706 542 3473; Fax: +706 542 5771

Dr Raoul Perez-Bercoff, has moved from Rome to Paris. His new address is: Laboratoire de Génétique des Virus du CNRS - UPR 9053, 1 avenue de la Terrasse, Bâtiment 14C, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France. Telephone: +33 1 6982 3844; Fax: +33 1 6982 4308; e-mail: bercoff@gv.cnrs-gif.fr

Dr Polly Roy has moved from Oxford, UK to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her address is: Pathogen Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Unit, Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, LSHTM, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK. Telephone: + 44 020 7927 2639; fax: +44 020 7636 8739; email: polly.roy@lshtm.ac.uk

In memoriam:

Dr Joe Gibbs, an expert on neurological diseases, died on February 16^th, 2001. He ran the TSE laboratory at the Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and worked with Dr Gajdusek to prove that kuru was caused by an infectious agent, whose identity is still unknown.

Dr Pekka Halonen a foremost diagnostician in virology, died in February in Turku, Finland. He was a major contributor to the development of new virus assays.

Dr Florian Horaud, who worked in the standardization and control of viral vaccines in general, but polio vaccine in particular, died in July 2000.

Dr Dorothy Horstmann, an epidemiologist, virologist and polio pioneer, died in January 2001. Her major scientific achievement was to show that the polio virus reached the brain by way of the blood, a discovery that led to the eventual development of a polio vaccine.

Dr Joseph Melnick, a founder of modern virology and a pioneer in polio research, died in January 2001. He was the first to conceptualize, classify and name a number of virus groups, including enteroviruses. He focused his research on the practical and public health aspects of a wide variety of viruses and was at the forefront of environmental virology work.

Dr Charles Mérieux, a virologist who developed vaccines for foot and mouth disease and rabies, died at the age of 94 in Lyons, France.