Gallo, Robert Charles (1937– )
US scientist credited with identifying the virus responsible for AIDS. Gallo discovered the virus, now known as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), in 1984; the French scientist Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, discovered the virus, independently, in 1983.
The sample in which Gallo discovered the virus was supplied by Montagnier, and it was alleged that this may have been contaminated by specimens of the virus isolated by Montagnier a few months earlier. Gallo was later exonerated of scientific fraud after a court case.
| Gallo spent 30 years at the National Cancer Institute, Maryland. In 1996 he headed the newly founded Institute of Virology, Baltimore. |
