Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory - Scientific Community in Trinidad in The 1950s and 60s

Scientific Community in Trinidad in The 1950s and 60s

The laboratory was one of four tropical virus research laboratories sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation during the 1950s, including one in Brazil and two in Africa.

Under the inspired leadership of Dr Downs the laboratory began intensive research programs and made many new discoveries including the isolating of several arthropod-borne disease-causing viruses, and new insights into the epidemiology of key virus diseases including yellow fever, dengue fever, and rabies.

Downs headed a team of dedicated researchers including Dr. Charles R. Anderson (Virologist), Dr Leslie Spence (Epidemiologist), Dr Thomas Aitkens (Entomologist) and Dr Brooke Worth (Mammologist and Ornithologist). They worked very closely with other scientists in Trinidad, particularly those at the New York Zoological Society's research station headed by Dr William Beebe, the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, the Trinidad and Tobago Health and Agriculture Departments, Arthur M. Greenhall, a world expert on vampire bats, and Dr A. E. Hill, a specialist in Tropical and Internal Diseases, with a particular interest in Dengue fever.

The flourishing scientific community centered around the T.R.V.L., the New York Zoological Society's field station at Simla, and the Imperial College of Agriculture, provided an exciting pool of top-notch scholars whose interests often extended well past their immediate jobs. Much useful research was accomplished in these years in fields as diverse as archeology, the mating of butterflies and fiddler crabs, ornithology, and parasitology.

The laboratory also played host to constant stream of distinguishing visiting scientists from around the world, many of them conducting cutting-edge research in their fields, as well as photographers and illustrators from the National Geographic and other magazines, as well as providing first-class training and jobs for local people.