On the occasion of World AIDS Day, This is Beirut takes you behind the scenes of one of the most groundbreaking scientific discoveries of the 20th century: the identification of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the infectious agent responsible for AIDS. For the first time, Professor Ara Hovanessian (then a research director at the CNRS in France), a direct witness and one of the key players in this major breakthrough, reveals, exclusively for This is Beirut, the twists and turns of a discovery that would soon become one of the greatest scandals in the history of contemporary science.
Former head of a research unit at the Pasteur Institute and close collaborator of Professor Luc Montagnier – Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008 for his discovery of HIV in 1983 – Ara Hovanessian revisits the key moments that defined the 1980s and 1990s, retracing the decisive steps of the French discovery. He also highlights the involvement of American researchers and the accusations of scientific fraud that led to an unprecedented scientific imbroglio.
Did the United States really discover HIV simultaneously with France? Did American researcher Robert Gallo ask Montagnier in 1983 to send him a sample of the newly isolated virus, only to announce in 1984 that the US had discovered the virus responsible for AIDS? Did Gallo falsify his scientific data to claim credit for the discovery?
Alain E. Andrea recounts this unprecedented story, full of twists and turns, through the testimony of Professor Ara Hovanessian, who closely experienced this pivotal period in scientific history. To be discovered on This is Beirut website, this Tuesday, December 2.
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