By 1967, she had earned her Doctor of Science on the basis of her research and the resulting publications, while working in Canada, at Toronto's Ontario Cancer Institute and then in London at St Thomas's.
[4] Her immune electron microscopy (IEM) innovations and insights contributed to research related to the diagnosis of hepatitis B, HIV, and rubella, among other viral diseases.
[1] Almeida was born on 5 October 1930 at 10 Duntroon Street, Glasgow, to Jane Dalziel (née Steven) and Harry Leonard Hart, a bus driver.
In 1954, Almeida was hired for a newly opened position as electron microscopy technician at the Ontario Cancer Institute,[1][5]: 209 where she worked for ten years.
[8] In 1966, Waterson and Almeida collaborated with the physician and director of research on the common cold, David Tyrrell, who was working on a new organ culture system.
[3]: 94 By 1967, Almeida earned her Doctor of Science (DSc) based on her publications on electron micrographic research of antibodies conducted at the Ontario Cancer Institute and at St Thomas's.
[5]: 209 In the book Cold Wars (2002), which Tyrrell wrote with Michael Fielder, he described how when he first met Almeida she seemed to be extending the range of the electron microscope to new limits.
"[3]: 96 she told Tyrrell that the B814 specimens had reminded her of particles she had previously studied in a "disease called infectious bronchitis of chickens" and in another disease—"mouse hepatitis liver inflammation."
[10] In their 2013 book entitled To Catch a Virus, John Booss and Marilyn J. August describe how Almeida "played a crucial role in adapting the electron microscope to clinical diagnostic virology work.
"[5]: 209 [Notes 1] Before Almeida's work with Anthony Peter Waterson in the 1960s, few improvements had been made on the initial 1941 "proof of principle aggregation of virus by virus-specific antibody observable by [electron microscope (EI)]."
[Publications 2] In the 1960s, she and Waterson were using negative staining for the EM of viruses—a technique that was both rapid and simple—and provided excellent detailed observations of viral morphology, which had revolutionized the electron microscopy of viruses overnight.
[5]: 208 In 1966, using her new techniques, Almeida was able to identify a group of "previously uncharacterised human respiratory viruses", while collaborating with David Tyrrell,[3]: 96 [5]: 209 then director of the Common Cold Research Centre[1] in Salisbury in Wiltshire.
[2] In 1970, at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPGMS) Almeida taught Albert Kapikian the technique of immune electron microscopy (IEM).
Kapikian, who was visiting for six months from the United States National Institutes of Health, used her techniques in the identification of a cause of non-bacterial gastroenteritis—the Norwalk virus, now known as the Norovirus.
[4] According to professor of bacteriology Hugh Pennington, Chinese scientists credited Almeida's work, including techniques she developed, with the early identification of coronavirus disease 2019.