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DR. LUC MONTAGNIER, SCIENTIST DR. ROBERT GALLO, SCIENTIST

In May 1983, Dr. Luc Montagnier (left) and a research team at the Pasteur Institute in Paris first isolated LAV, a virus they said was the cause of AIDS. Their claim was disputed by a U.S. research team led by Dr. Robert Gallo (right) of the National Cancer Institute who said that they had hit upon the AIDS-causing virus, HTLV-III, in April 1984. Eventually both viruses were found to be the same entity and renamed HIV. But many scientists believed Gallo's "discovery" was spurious, even after he reduced his role to merely that of "codiscoverer." Finally, in 1992, Gallo admitted his wrongdoing when he confessed that his institute's virus had come from a blood sample sent to him by the Parisians and that he had concealed the fact.

Montagnier was born in 1933 and attended college during the German occupation of France during World War II. In addition to discovering HIV, he is also the proponent of several theories regarding AIDS. One of his hypotheses, similar to those of Dr. Joseph Sonnabend (see card 59), is that a "benign" form of HIVactually found and preserved by African doctors decades agoonly became fatal when it combined with a coöperative "co-factor" microorganism called a mycoplasma, endemic to North America.

As Dr. Montagnier and his colleagues at the Pasteur Institute, like Dr. Jonas Salk and his team at the Salk Institute (see card 102), attempt to develop an HIV vaccine, scientists in the Netherlands may be close to unlocking the secret of how an HIV infection eventually becomes AIDS, and Dr Jeffrey Galpin of California has gotten government permission to test his new AIDS vaccine, which is designed to stop HIV-positive people from developing AIDS.

Next Card 101: PETER PENDER: Bridge Champ, Resort Owner

AIDS AWARENESS: PEOPLE WITH AIDS

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DR. LUC MONTAGNIER/DR. ROBERT GALLO