Insubria and the Community: Honoris Causa Degrees

Robert C. Gallo
Honorary Degree in Medicine and Surgery
May 29, 2006

Robert Charles Gallo (born in Waterbury, Connecticut - 1937) is a U.S.A. biomedical researcher. 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.

In 1974 he identified the first retrovirus in humans: the "human T-cell leukemia virus," or HTLV.
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.
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.
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 1995, Gallo published his discovery that chemokines, a class of naturally occurring compounds, can block HIV and halt the progression of AIDS.
This has been influencing medical thinking on how AIDS works against the human body and it is regarded as having great potential in playing a future role in possible vaccine development.

Gallo is currently the Director of the Institute for Human Virology, an institution affiliated with the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.

In the occasion of Insubria H.C. Degree, Professor Gallo delivered the Lectio Magistralis address “HIV/AIDS Research - Then and Now”.