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March 29
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Dr. Albert Z. Kapikian, M.D., a pioneering virologist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health who discovered norovirus and led a decades-long effort that resulted in the first licensed rotavirus vaccine, died at the age of 83, Asbarez reported. 

Dr. Kapikian was the former chief of the epidemiology section of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a position he held for 45 years.

“Al Kapikian was a giant in the field of virology,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “His seminal basic and clinical research contributions to the study of viruses and to vaccine development have had an enormous global impact. Importantly, he was a warm-hearted, beloved, and widely respected human being. His many friends at NIAID and NIH mourn the loss of their esteemed colleague.”

Dr. Kapikian often was called the father of human gastroenteritis virus research. In 1972, he identified the first norovirus. In 1973, Dr. Kapikian and his colleagues identified the hepatitis A virus. He also was the first scientist in the United States to detect human rotavirus, which had been discovered by others in Australia.

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