Importance of Jordi Casals

Jordi Casals is a Barcelona-born scientist who had the largest collection of insect carried and hemorrhagic viruses in the world. These highly volatile samples were stored in secure areas in deep freezers at the Yale arbovirus lab. When scientists in the field needed to see if a virus with which they were working was a new one, or one that had previously existed, samples were generally sent to Casals for analysis. In the case of the Marburg virus, Casals was unable to find a match, and he was again stumped when they sent him samples of Lassa. However, Casals also went into the field with Lassa to help determine the source of Joe McCormick infection. Without his organization of the known viruses of the world, the scientific organizations may have been unable to identify outbreaks of disease, resulting in epidemics. Casals was also vital in his role in the Lassa epidemic, when he contracted the disease and then agreed to travel into the hot zones, donating his antibodies.