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Robert Charles Gallo (born . BACKGROUND Gallo was born in Waterbury , Connecticut to a working-class family of Italian immigrants. He earned a B.S. degree in Biology in 1959 from Providence College and received an M.D. from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania in 1963 . After completing his medical residency and internship at the University Of Chicago , he became a researcher at the National Cancer Institute . Gallo states that his choice of profession was influenced by the early death of his sister from Leukemia , a disease to which he initially dedicated much of his research. RETROVIRUS WORK After listening to a talk by biologist . In 1984 , Gallo and his collaborators published a series of four papers in the research journal '' Science '' arguing that HIV , a retrovirus that had recently been identified in AIDS patients by Luc Montagnier and his collaborators at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France , was the cause of AIDS. However, the striking similarity between the first two human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) isolates Lai/LAV (formerly LAV, isolated at the Pasteur Institute) and Lai/IIIB (formerly HTLV-IIIB, reported to be isolated from a pooled culture at the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology (LTCB) of the National Cancer Institute) provoked considerable controversy in light of the high level of variability found among subsequent HIV-1 isolates. Since then, there has been considerable and often acrimonious controversy over the priority for the discovery of HIV , including accusations that Gallo improperly used a sample of HIV produced at the Institut Pasteur. In November 1990, the Office of Scientific Integrity at the National Institutes of Health commissioned a group at Roche to analyse archival samples established at the Pasteur Institute and the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology (LTCB) of the National Cancer Institute between 1983 and 1985. Retrospective analyses showed that contamination of a culture derived from patient BRU by one from patient LAI was responsible for the provenance of HIV-1 Lai/LAV; the contaminated culture (M2T-/B) was sent to LTCB in September 1983. Chang et al. (1993) examined archival specimens and reported in Nature the detection of six novel HIV-1 sequences in the cultures used to establish the pool: none was closely related to HIV-1 Lai/IIIB. A sample derived from patient LAI contained variants of both HIV-1 Lai/IIIB and HIV-1 Lai/LAV, and a sequence identical to a variant of HIV-1 Lai/IIIB was detected in the contaminated M2T-/B culture. They concluded that the pool, and probably another LTCB culture, MoV, were contaminated between October 1983 and early 1984 by variants of HIV-1 Lai from the M2T-/B culture. Therefore, the origin of the HIV-1 Lai/IIIB isolate also was patient LAI. However, today it is generally agreed that Montagnier's group was the first to identify HIV , although Gallo's group insists it contributed significantly to demonstrating that it causes AIDS. Furthermore, Gallo's group they claim they were the first to grow the virus in an immortalized cell line, leading to the development of blood tests for HIV and the ability to screen donated blood for this virus. Also, Gallo insisted the work of Montagnier had relied on a technique previously developed by Gallo for growing T Cell s in the laboratory by supplementing Interleukin-2 . The two scientists continued to dispute each other's claims until 1987, when they finally agreed to share credit for the discovery of HIV. In plays for controlling progression of HIV infection to AIDS has been influencing medical thinking on how AIDS works against the human body. It is regarded as having great potential in playing a future role in possible vaccine development. (''See'': 1.) CRITICISM Dr. Gallo is extremely competitive and has been accused of stealing his major discoveries from others. Critics argue that his fight to patent a device to detect whether blood is infected with AIDS delayed the technology's use for a whole year, leading many to die. He has received criticism from the Gay Community over issues regarding AIDS, principally based on views expressed about him in the book and movie '' And The Band Played On '', written by Randy Shilts . Other criticisms include the ''Chicago Tribune'' supplement by John Crewdson , ''Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, A Massive Cover-Up, and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo'' and ''Spy'' magazine's Lab rat: What AIDS researcher Dr. Robert Gallo did in pursuit of the Nobel Prize, and what he didn't do in pursuit of a cure for AIDS . EXTERNAL LINKS
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