Collection VRU - Virus Research Unit

Extent: 16 boxes

Virus Research Unit correspondence and photographs

Admin History: The Virus Research Unit (VRU) was established in 1947 when the Agricultural Research Council took over the old Plant Virus Research Station which opened in Cambridge in 1927. Run by the Ministry of Agriculture; it's first director was R N Salaman with Kenneth M Smith as Senior Research Assistant. Its main aims at this stage were to build up a nucleus stock of virus-free potatoes by propagating in insect free glasshouses and to conduct research into potato viruses. This expanded within a few years to research into plant viruses in general. In 1948 it merged into the Plant Virus Research Unit of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), at the Molteno Institute, Cambridge. The Unit was concerned with 'fundamental studiers on plant and insect viruses', comprising 'studies on isolation and methods of purification; serology; relationships of plant viruses with their vectors; and studies of new viruses and virus strains; physical and chemical investigations of viruses; the composition of nucleic acids and proteins; natural history of insect virus diseases, symptomatology and the mechanism of spread of viruses; purification and electron microscopy; histology of infected insects; acquired immunity; biochemistry of purified viruses; bacteriophages' (c 1957). Roy Markham succeeded Kenneth Smith in 1956. Its laboratories were at the Molteno Institute and at the Field Station on the University Farm, Huntingdon Road. See 'Plant Virus Research at Cambridge', by Kenneth M Smith in Nature Vol 161, 15 May 1948 for the history of the unit from 1927 to 1948 and short history of the VRU c 1957 in VRU/4/1.