The Oxford Antiviral Drug Discovery Unit was opened on 30th November 2006 and ever since lectures in virology have been held annually which are funded by United Therapeutics. At the inaugural event, lectures were given by Dr Baruch Blumberg, Dr Martine Rothblatt and Prof Dennis Burton at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Dr Blumberg passed away on 5th April 2011 and from the seventh lecture onwards the series was renamed the Unither Baruch Blumberg Distinguished Annual Lecture in Virology.
