Who discovered the HIV virus?
837251#9
It was not until French President François Mitterrand and American President Ronald Reagan met in person that the major issues were ironed out. The scientific protagonists finally agreed to share credit for the discovery of HIV, and in 1986, both the French and the US names (LAV and HTLV-III) were dropped in favor of the new term "human immunodeficiency virus" (virus de l'immunodéficience humaine, abbreviated HIV or VIH) (Coffin, 1986). They concluded that the origin of the HIV-1 Lai/IIIB isolate discovered by Gallo was the same as that discovered by Montagnier (but not known by Montagnier to cause AIDS). This compromise allowed Montagnier and Gallo to end their feud and collaborate with each other again, writing a chronology that appeared in "Nature" that year.
Luc Montagnier
837251#0
Luc Antoine Montagnier (; born 18 August 1932) is a French virologist and joint recipient with and of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). A long-time researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, he currently works as a full-time professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.
Luc Montagnier
837251#11
The 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi for the discovery of HIV. They shared the Prize with Harald zur Hausen, who discovered that human papilloma viruses can cause cervical cancer. Montagnier said he was "surprised" that Robert Gallo was not also recognized by the Nobel Committee: "It was important to prove that HIV was the cause of AIDS, and Gallo had a very important role in that. I'm very sorry for Robert Gallo." According to Maria Masucci, a member of the Nobel Assembly, "there was no doubt as to who made the fundamental discoveries."
Luc Montagnier
14170#53
Another group working contemporaneously with the Montagnier and Gallo groups was that of Dr. Jay Levy at the University of California, San Francisco. He independently discovered the AIDS virus in 1983 and named it the AIDS associated retrovirus (ARV). This virus was very different from the virus reported by the Montagnier and Gallo groups. The ARV strains indicated, for the first time, the heterogeneity of HIV isolates and several of these remain classic examples of the AIDS virus found in the United States.
HIV
37783228#17
The HIV genome presented several additional mysteries. The virus genome contained regions that might specify as yet unknown proteins. The Haseltine laboratory discovered a novel transacting protein and a second protein, both required for virus replication. They named the transactivator tat and the second protein art; the latter was renamed rev. He predicted that drugs that target these proteins will also be effective in treating the infection. A drug that inhibits the "rev" protein has been approved by the USA Food and Drug administration for treatment of HIV infection. His laboratory went on to discover additional viral genes and proteins – "vpr", "vpu", "vif", and "nef" - required for efficient virus growth in some but not all circumstances. The discoveries were summarized in an article in 1988 in "Scientific American".
William A. Haseltine
14170#3
Two types of HIV have been characterized: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is the virus that was initially discovered and termed both lymphadenopathy associated virus (LAV) and human T-lymphotropic virus 3 (HTLV-III). HIV-1 is more virulent and more infective than HIV-2, and is the cause of the majority of HIV infections globally. The lower infectivity of HIV-2, compared to HIV-1, implies that fewer of those exposed to HIV-2 will be infected per exposure. Due to its relatively poor capacity for transmission, HIV-2 is largely confined to West Africa.
HIV
45146256#2
In early 2000, researchers discovered a small group of sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya who were estimated to have sexual contact with 60 to 70 HIV positive clients a year without signs of infection. These sex workers were not found to have the delta mutation leading scientists to believe other factors could create a genetic resistance to HIV. Researchers from Public Health Agency of Canada have identified 15 proteins unique to those virus-free sex workers. Later, however some sex workers were discovered to have contracted the virus, leading Oxford University researcher Sarah Rowland-Jones to believe continual exposure is a requirement for maintaining immunity.
Innate resistance to HIV
19167679#12
The second half of the 20th century was the golden age of virus discovery and most of the over 2,000 recognised species of animal, plant, and bacterial viruses were discovered during these years. In 1957, equine arterivirus and the cause of Bovine virus diarrhoea (a pestivirus) were discovered. In 1963, the hepatitis B virus was discovered by Baruch Blumberg, and in 1965, Howard Temin described the first retrovirus. Reverse transcriptase, the enzyme that retroviruses use to make DNA copies of their RNA, was first described in 1970, independently by Howard Martin Temin and David Baltimore. In 1983 Luc Montagnier's team at the Pasteur Institute in France, first isolated the retrovirus now called HIV. In 1989 Michael Houghton's team at Chiron Corporation discovered Hepatitis C.
Virus
11123775#1
In 1984, Essex identified gp120, the virus surface protein that is used worldwide for blood screening, HIV detection, and epidemiological monitoring. With collaborators, he discovered the first simian immunodeficiency virus, as well as HIV-2. Since 1986, he has developed programs for AIDS collaboration in Senegal, Thailand, Botswana, India, Mexico, and China. In 1996, Essex helped establish the Botswana–Harvard Partnership for HIV Research and Education (now the Botswana–Harvard AIDS Institute). This is a collaboration between the Ministry of Health in Botswana and HAI.
Max Essex
195187#17
In June 1984, Burroughs-Wellcome virologist Marty St. Clair set up a program to discover drugs with the potential to inhibit HIV replication. Burroughs-Wellcome had expertise in nucleoside analogs and viral diseases, led by researchers including George Hitchings, Gertrude Elion, David Barry, Paul (Chip) McGuirt Jr., Philip Furman, Martha St. Clair, Janet Rideout, Sandra Lehrman and others. Their research efforts were focused in part on the viral enzyme reverse transcriptase. Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme that retroviruses, including HIV, utilize to replicate themselves. Secondary testing was performed in mouse cells infected with the retroviruses Friend virus or Harvey sarcoma virus, as the Wellcome group did not have a viable in-house HIV antiviral assay in place at that time, and these other retroviruses were believed to represent reasonable surrogates. AZT proved to be a remarkably potent inhibitor of both Friend virus and Harvey sarcoma virus, and a search of the company's records showed that it had demonstrated low toxicity when tested for its antibacterial activity in rats many years earlier. Based in part on these results, AZT was selected by nucleoside chemist Janet Rideout as one of 11 compounds to send to the NCI for testing in that organization's HIV antiviral assay.
Zidovudine
56233936#4
He began his work as a herpes virologist with a specific focus on developing drug therapeutics for orolabial and genital herpes and severe life-threatening infections like herpes encephalitis. When HIV was identified as a virus in the 1980s, Schinazi and his fellow researchers directed their attention towards the problem. He was able to translate his knowledge gained through his work on the herpes viruses towards addressing HIV and HBV. He is credited for setting up the first-ever HIV laboratory at Emory University complete with a protocol on how to handle the dangerous virus in the laboratory setting so he and his team could pursue the development of novel antiviral drugs. In 1987, he helped Prusoff’s laboratory discover that d4T, a nucleoside analog, had selective activity against HIV.
Raymond F. Schinazi
37783228#16
Haseltine's approach to the epidemic was threefold:The first goal was achieved by understanding the structure and function of the virus. Haseltine's laboratory, working in collaboration with two other groups, determined the complete sequence of the viral genome and discovered the genes that specify the virus capsid, polymerase, protease, ribonuclease H, integrase and envelop genes. The first application of this knowledge was to design a fragment of the virus envelope protein that could be used to accurately detect antibodies to HIV in those infected, forming the basis of an accurate diagnostic test. This protein fragment was used by Cambridge BioSciences (Later named Cambridge BioTech) to develop a rapid test for HIV infection that could be used at home. It was only in 2012 that the US FDA approved a similar home HIV test kit.
Haseltine and his laboratory quickly showed that damage to any of the viral genes that specify the virus capsid, polymerase, protease, ribonuclease, integrase and envelope genes killed the virus and therefore that proteins specified by each gene were good targets for anti-viral drugs. Over the next several years his laboratory isolated each of the genes and their proteins in pure form and developed methods that were used by the pharmaceutical companies to discover new anti viral drugs. The first HIV specific protease inhibitor Nelfinavir, was developed as a part of a three way collaboration between the Haseltine laboratory, Cambridge BioSciences, a company Haseltine and his colleagues created, and Agouron Pharmaceuticals. The combination of an HIV polymerase inhibitor such as AZT and an anti protease drug lead to the first long term survival of those infected with HIV. Haseltine proposed the use of combination chemotherapy, targeting multiple drugs against different viral proteins as the basis for effective therapy. Today those ideas have proven out; the pharmaceutical industry has developed more than forty drugs that inhibit the HIV polymerase, protease, integrase, and envelope proteins. Combinations of these drugs have transformed HIV infection from a near universally fatal disease to one that with proper management usually can be successfully treated for decades.
William A. Haseltine