| Citation | Skehel has made many significant contributions in the field of virus biochemistry. His early studies were with Semliki Forest virus, reovirus, adenovirus and interferon, but his major contributions have been with influenza virus. These latter contributions can be conveniently divided into (a) a study of the replication of the virus and (b) the structure of the virus haemagglutinin. In (a) he was the first to demonstrate the regulation of expression, the existence of two structurally kinds of transcript and their differential production, and the existence of conserved terminal regions in all influenza RNAs. In (b) he crystallised the virus haemagglutinin and produced the first amino acid sequence and subunit structure which has essentially defined the primary structure of the molecule. His recent three-dimensional structural analysis is already a classic paper in virology. |