In the early 1980s, a frightening illness began to surface, presenting a profound challenge to the medical world. Doctors in major US cities observed clusters of otherwise healthy young men succumbing to rare infections and cancers their bodies should have easily fought off. This pattern of symptoms was unlike anything seen before, creating an atmosphere of confusion and fear. The rapid progression of the illness and lack of understanding of its origins fueled a sense of urgency among scientists and public health officials, marking the beginning of a global health crisis.
Early Recognition of a New Disease
The first official acknowledgment of this health threat came on June 5, 1981. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report describing cases of a rare lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, in five young gay men in Los Angeles. Shortly after, reports followed of an aggressive cancer, Kaposi’s Sarcoma, appearing in men in New York and California. These conditions were previously known to occur almost exclusively in people with severely weakened immune systems, making their appearance in healthy individuals highly unusual.
Physicians and epidemiologists noted these cases were part of a larger pattern. The patients shared a common trait: a profound collapse of their cellular immunity. Because the underlying cause was unknown, the condition was classified as a syndrome. In 1982, the CDC officially named it Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), defining it by the presence of specific opportunistic infections in a person with no known reason for diminished immune resistance.
The French Discovery at the Pasteur Institute
As researchers raced to find the cause of the syndrome, a team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris investigated the hypothesis that a retrovirus was responsible. A retrovirus is a type of virus that inserts a copy of its RNA genome into the DNA of a host cell. The team was led by virologist Luc Montagnier, and his colleague Françoise Barré-Sinoussi headed the laboratory investigation.
In January 1983, the team received a lymph node biopsy from a patient with swollen lymph nodes, a precursor to AIDS. Barré-Sinoussi and her colleagues isolated a previously unknown retrovirus from the patient’s cultured lymphocytes. They detected the virus’s activity within weeks and, by early February, had captured the first electron microscope images of the particles.
The French team named their discovery lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV) and published their findings in Science on May 20, 1983. In their paper, they noted that LAV was distinct from other known human retroviruses. This publication was the first to identify the virus later confirmed as the cause of AIDS, providing a target for research and diagnostic testing.
The American Contribution and Controversy
Across the Atlantic, Dr. Robert Gallo, a virologist at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, was also hunting for the cause of AIDS. Gallo’s lab had experience with human retroviruses, having previously discovered HTLV-I and developed techniques for growing human T-cells in the lab. In May 1984, nearly a year after the French announcement, Gallo’s team published a series of four papers in Science. They announced they had isolated a virus they called HTLV-III and proved it was the cause of AIDS.
Gallo’s announcement was acclaimed for establishing the causal link to AIDS and for developing a method to grow the virus in large quantities, which was needed for developing a blood test. However, scientists soon discovered that Gallo’s HTLV-III was genetically almost identical to Montagnier’s LAV. This revelation ignited a controversy, with the French team suggesting their original LAV sample, sent to Gallo’s lab for collaboration, had been misappropriated.
The dispute escalated into an international incident involving scientific credit, patent rights for the blood test, and national pride. The U.S. and French governments became involved, attempting to mediate the conflict between the Pasteur Institute and the National Institutes of Health. Investigations were launched to determine if Gallo’s discovery was independent or the result of a contaminated French sample. While Gallo was eventually cleared of official misconduct, the investigation found that a sample from the Pasteur Institute had inadvertently contaminated one of the cultures in Gallo’s lab.
Resolution and Nobel Prize Recognition
The public and political dispute eventually led to a resolution. In 1986, the U.S. and French governments announced a joint agreement that both Montagnier and Gallo would be recognized as co-discoverers of the virus. As part of this settlement, they also agreed to share the patent royalties from the blood test. A neutral name, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), was adopted to replace both LAV and HTLV-III, ending the naming controversy.
Years later, the scientific community delivered its own verdict. In 2008, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for the discovery of HIV. The prize was shared by Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi for their work in first isolating the virus. Robert Gallo was notably excluded from the award.
The Nobel Committee stated there was “no doubt as to who made the fundamental discoveries.” While acknowledging Gallo’s contributions to demonstrating the link between the virus and AIDS, the committee’s decision was seen as a final judgment on who held primacy in the discovery. Montagnier himself expressed surprise that Gallo was not included, recognizing the American team’s work in proving HIV caused AIDS.