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Robert Charles Gallo (born March 23, 1937) is an American biomedical researcher. He is best known for his controversial role in claiming credit for the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the infectious agent responsible for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which he was found guilty of scientific misconduct by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1992. While Dr. Gallo's appeal was pending, the HHS Research Integrity Adjudications Panel issued a new definition of scientific misconduct and a higher standard for proving misconduct that caused HHS to vacate the guilty determination. Nevertheless, the HHS Office of Research Integrity issued a strong rebuke of Dr. Gallo's activities in his pursuit of claiming credit for the discovery of HIV. Despite these events, Dr. Gallo has been a major contributor to subsequent HIV research.

Gallo is the director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He and two longtime scientific collaborators, Robert R. Redfield and William A. Blattner, co-founded the institute in 1996 in a partnership including the State of Maryland and the City of Baltimore. In 2005, Gallo co-founded Profectus BioSciences, Inc., which develops and commercializes technologies to reduce the morbidity and mortality caused by human viral diseases, including HIV.

Gallo was born in Waterbury, Connecticut to a working-class family of Italian immigrants. He earned a BS degree in Biology in 1959 from Providence College and received an MD from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1963. After completing his medical residency 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 David Baltimore, Gallo became interested in the study of retroviruses, and made their study the primary activity of his lab. In 1976, Doris Morgan, a researcher in Gallo's lab, was successful in growing T lymphocytes. Frank Ruscetti, Gallo, and Morgan coauthored a paper in Science describing their method. Morgan and Ruscetti eventually identified this as being dependent upon the activity of Blastogenic Factor, the T-cell growth factor previously discovered by Julius Gordon in 1965, later renamed as IL-2 (interleukin-2) by Kendall A. Smith. These breakthroughs allowed researchers to grow T-cells and study the viruses that affect them, such as human T-cell leukemia virus, or HTLV, the first retrovirus identified in humans, which Bernard Poiesz and Ruscetti isolated in Gallo's lab. HTLV's role in leukemia was clarified when a group of Japanese researchers, puzzling over an outbreak of a rare form of the disease, independently isolated the same retrovirus and showed it was the cause. In 1982, Gallo received the prestigious Lasker Award: “For his pioneering studies that led to the discovery of the first human RNA tumor virus and its association with certain leukemias and lymphomas.” In 2009, Robert Gallo received the Dan David Prize of the Dan David Foundation and Tel Aviv University.

HIV/AIDS research

On May 4, 1984, Gallo and his collaborators published a series of four papers in the scientific journal Science claiming that a retrovirus they had isolated, called HTLV-III in the belief that the virus was related to the leukemia viruses of Gallo's earlier work, was the cause of AIDS. A French team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, led by Luc Montagnier, had published a paper in Science in 1983, describing a retrovirus they called LAV (lymphadenopathy associated virus), isolated from a patient at risk for AIDS.

However, in 1992, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found Dr. Gallo guilty of scientific misconduct in building his claim that he discovered HIV. In finding Dr. Gallo guilty of scientific misconduct, the HHS report concluded that Gallo's false assertions not only "virtually ensured" his own laboratory's preeminence in AIDS research but "impeded potential AIDS research progress" with the French virus, later confirmed as a the true source of AIDS in a 1993 NIH analysis, which stated that that Dr. Gallo co-opted justify his claim that he discovered HIV as well as the HIV test patent. The HHS report also noted that "many of Dr. Gallo's (other) actions reflect a pattern of conduct that must be censured even though they do not constitute scientific misconduct," which include "Dr. Gallo's propensity to misrepresent and mislead in favor of his own research findings or hypotheses," failure to meet the obligation for scientific accuracy, "irresponsible laboratory management," and "indifference to acknowledging promptly the contributions of others and to sharing of research materials of critical public health importance."

In 1995, Gallo published his discovery that chemokines, a class of naturally occurring compounds, can block HIV and halt the progression of AIDS. This was heralded by Science magazine as one of the top scientific breakthroughs within the same year of his publication. The role chemokines play in controlling the progression of HIV infection has influenced thinking on how AIDS works against the human immune system and led to a class of drugs used to treat HIV, the chemokine antagonists or entry inhibitors.

Gallo's team at the Institute of Human Virology maintain an ongoing program of scientific research and clinical care and treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS, treating more than 4,000 patients in Baltimore and 200,000 patients at institute-supported clinics in Africa and the Caribbean. In July 2007, Gallo and his team were awarded a $15 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for research into a preventive vaccine for HIV/AIDS.

In 2008, Montagnier and his colleague Françoise Barré-Sinoussi from the Institut Pasteur were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on the discovery of HIV. Harald zur Hausen also shared the Prize for his discovery that human papilloma viruses lead to cervical cancer, but Gallo was left out. Gallo said that it was "a disappointment" that he was not named a co-recipient. Montagnier said he was "surprised" Gallo was not 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."

Alongside Dr. Luc Montagnier, Dr. Gallo was awarded his second Lasker Award in 1986 for "determining that the retrovirus now known as HIV-1 is the cause of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).” He is the only recipient of two Lasker Awards.

Controversy

Assignment of responsibility for the discovery of HIV has been controversial and was a subplot in the 1993 American television film docudrama (and earlier book about the early history of AIDS) And the Band Played On. Dr. Gallo was later found guilty of scientific misconduct by the HHS for his role in attempting to claim credit for the discovery of HIV. This ruling was later vacated due to an internal disagreement within HHS on the definition and application of scientific misconduct. Nevertheless, HHS issued a strong rebuke of Dr. Gallo's conduct.

Dr. Luc Montagnier's group in France isolated HIV almost one and a half years before Gallo, while Gallo's group generated much of the science that made the discovery possible, including a technique previously developed by Gallo's lab for growing T cells in the laboratory. When Montagnier's group first published their discovery, which was heavily edited by Dr. Gallo, it said HIV's role in causing AIDS "remains to be determined." But the CDC later determined that the HIV caused AIDS based on samples from Dr. Montagnier's group and Dr. Gallo's lab, which the latter had co-opted the French sample and relabeled it as its own.

Investigative journalist John Crewdson suggested that Gallo's lab may have misappropriated a sample of HIV isolated at the Pasteur Institute by Montagnier's group. As part of these investigations, the National Institutes of Health commissioned Hoffmann–La Roche scientists to analyze archival samples established at the Pasteur Institute and the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology (LTCB) of the National Cancer Institute between 1983 and 1985. A 1992 HHS finding discredited the NIH's report and found Dr. Gallo guilty of scientific misconduct. A subsequent NIH analysis in 1993 concluded that Dr. Gallo's lab co-opted the Pasteur Institute's sample since it was unequivocally identical and "there appears to be no evidence there ever was a 3B to be contaminated."

Moreover, the 1992 HHS report found that Dr. Gallo personally withheld key information about the Pasteur Institute's role in discovering HIV. The HHS report stated that based on the accounts of five scientists, including two Americans who were in the same room, during an April 1984 meeting at the Pasteur Institute Dr. Gallo was shown the CDC's comparative evaluation of the French and American AIDS blood test results, and Dr. Gallo confirmed that the virus discovered by the French the year before was in fact the cause of AIDS. Nevertheless, three weeks later, Dr. Gallo attempted to claim public credit for discovering the AIDS virus by stating he isolated it from a pool of blood samples drawn from 10 American AIDS patients.

Because of the discovery uncertainties, the French and US governments disputed a patent for an HIV test that had been filed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In 1987, the two governments agreed to split equally the proceeds from the patent, naming Montagnier and Gallo co-discoverers, but in 1994, the U.S. government officially acknowledged that Dr. Gallo's laboratory at the NIH stole a French strain of HIV to develop the HIV test now used worldwide. At the same time, the NIH agreed to give the French a larger share of the royalties from sales of the test kit. Montagnier and Gallo resumed collaborating with each other again for a chronology that appeared in Nature in 1987.

In June 1993, a NIH-sponsored laboratory analysis confirmed that Dr. Gallo's HTLV-3B is actually the French LAV sample (now known as HIV), which meant that he either stole the French sample to claim credit for discovering HIV, or somehow contaminated his own sample so badly that it replicated the LAV sample. The analysis also showed for the first time that Dr. Gallo's "MOV" was also LAV, which meant that all of Dr. Gallo's research on the AIDS test was done with a virus sample loaned to him by the French and not his own. The analysis further concluded that four of the 10 AIDS patient blood samples Gallo claimed to have pooled in isolating HTLV-3B never contained any AIDS virus, and that none of the six other samples contained a virus resembling LAV. "There is reason to doubt," the report states, "that the 'pool' experiment, as described by Gallo, really was done, or if done, that it ever produced anything other than LAV." The report discounts Gallo's claim of accidental contamination, stating that "there appears to be no evidence there ever was a 3B to be contaminated."

In the November 29, 2002 issue of Science, Gallo and Montagnier published a series of articles, one of which was co-written by both scientists, in which they acknowledged the pivotal roles that each had played in the discovery of HIV.

In awarding the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2008, the Nobel Committee decided not to grant Gallo the award, which many speculated was a result of Dr. Gallo's misconduct. The rules limit the number of winners to three people, and the Committee chose to split the award to include both the discovery of HIV and the discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer. The award was given to Luc Montagnier (HIV), Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (HIV), and Harald zur Hausen (papilloma virus). Montagnier expressed his surprise that Gallo was passed over by the Nobel Committee. Maria Masucci, a member of the Nobel Assembly, said in reference to purposely omitting Dr. Gallo, “there was no doubt as to who made the fundamental discoveries.”

HHV-6

In 1986, Gallo, Dharam Ablashi, and Saira Salahuddin discovered Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6), later found to cause Roseola, an infantile disease.

References

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24. Summary of fraud accusation
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Further reading

• Gallo, Robert (1991). Virus Hunting: AIDS, Cancer & The Human Retrovirus. A Story of Scientific Discovery. ISBN 0-465-09806-1.
• Epstein, Steven (1996). Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge. University of California Press. pp. 480 pages. ISBN 978-0-520-20233-7.
• Crewdson, John (2002). Science Fictions: A Scientific Mystery, a Massive Coverup, and the Dark Legacy of Robert Gallo. Little, Brown & Co. pp. 670, xviii. ISBN 0-316-13476-7.
• Shilts, Randy (2007 (revised edition)). And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. St. Martin's Griffin. pp. 656 pages. ISBN 978-0-312-37463-1. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

External links

• Top AIDS Scientist Guilty Of Misconduct
• Chronological Summary of the Discovery of the AIDS Virus From 1983 To 1994
• Combatting AIDS at Home by Dr. Robert Gallo, The Washington Post, op-ed, November 16, 2008
• Statement of Robert C. Gallo, October 6, 2008
• AIDS at 20: A Look Back, A Look Ahead with World-Renowned Scientist Dr. Robert Gallo
• Official biography
• Discovering the Cause of AIDS, by Stanley B. Prusiner
• Robert Gallo optimistic about finding an HIV vaccine soon - A recorded Interview on IsraCast
• NIH oral History of Dr. Robert C. Gallo on AIDS research
• The Sound and Fury of HIV
• Press Release on the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008
• French researchers win for virus discovery; controversial scientist shunned
• Portrait, Interviews und Lectures
• Dan David Prize laureate 2009

Template:Persondata

• 1937 births
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• Living people
• American physicians
• HIV/AIDS researchers
• American people of Italian descent
• American medical researchers
• American oncologists
• People from Waterbury, Connecticut
• Japan Prize laureates
• Providence College alumni
• Thomas Jefferson University alumni
• Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research