Scientist found HIV virus rejected for Nobel Prize

Robert Gallo (USA) and two French colleagues announced to find HIV but due to misunderstandings, Gallo was not awarded a Nobel Prize.

History of finding HIV is extremely complicated. In the early 80s, people knew almost nothing about the mysterious disease that made the body's immune system decline.

One of the scientists found HIV is Robert Gallo (USA) . According to Very Well Health, Gallo was born in 1937. After completing his residency program at the University of Chicago, he moved to the National Cancer Institute of America and worked here continuously for 30 years. The main motive for his research on cancer was the death of her sister from blood cancer.

Most of Gallo's work at the Cancer Institute focuses on T cells, the key to the body's immune response. As a result, he and his colleagues successfully isolated many T-cell attack viruses, including T-lymphocyte virus, or HTLV .

Scientist Robert Gallo in the laboratory.(Photo: BP).

In 1982, information about the mysterious "gay cancer" appeared in the United States. Believing that a virus has caused T cells to decline rapidly, Gallo and colleagues began studying patients and isolating the HTLV-3 virus.

At the same time, Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi at the Pasteur Institute (France) also searched for the cause behind the disease they called AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). In 1983, two scientists claimed to find lymph node virus (LAV) . They concluded that this is the root cause of AIDS.

In 1986, two HLTV-3 and LAV viruses were confirmed to be the same type. The unified scientific world calls it HIV.

In the same year, Gallo was awarded the Lasker Prize for finding HIV. However, his reputation was quickly destroyed.

In 1989, investigative journalist John Crewdson accused Gallo of not contributing to the HIV detection process, but appropriated LAV samples from the Pasteur Institute. According to Independent, the writer of the Chigato Tribun newspaper argues Gallo is focused on other viruses and only discovered HLTV-3 on LAV form sent by Montagnier himself.

Later, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigated and confirmed that Crewdson was completely wrong. The NIH report said Gallo prepared a lot of virus samples and independently studied. The French and American governments also agreed to split the patent right.

In 2002, in Science magazine, Montagnier and Gallo collaborated to write an article, which acknowledged each other's contributions. However, in 2008, only Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Now, at the age of 81, Gallo continues to work.(Photo: F1000 Blogs).

Although he was not awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Gallo made a continuous contribution to his research career. Besides detecting the virus, he also helped build the first way to test HIV .

In 1996, Gallo and co-founders of the Institute of Human Viruses and $ 15 million from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their efforts to research HIV vaccines. In 2011, he founded the Global Virus Network with the aim of promoting cooperation among researchers.