Before AIDS you were researching the first known human retroviruses, and the only known virus to cause leukemia. Did you find cancer or AIDS research more challenging?

They are both about the same. Only cancer is more complicated because it includes many different diseases. With AIDS you can pour yourself into one, single, unifying cause – HIV – so there is a chance of really doing something about it in total. Whereas in cancer you have to treat each type of cancer as a singular different disease, in which you are looking for some common pathways in which we are beginning to learn.

So, I would say they are different kind of challenges. Parenthetically, I still do work in cancer for example we are very much interested in the types of cancer that occur with an increased incidence in people that are HIV infected.

When you reflect on the 30 years since AIDS – do you find that there were both challenging and hopeful times?

Certainly there are at least a few periods in my career where I felt like that. The first took place before AIDS when we were trying to prove that humans could be infected by retroviruses and it was a decade before we proved the point with the only known leukemia causing virus, HTLV-1 which can also cause a fatal neurologic disease, HTLV associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). In fact HTLV-1 is very important in Latin American countries and Japan for the greater frequency. But trying to prove that even retroviruses existed before the discovery of HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 was long, difficult and sometimes frustrating.

有了艾滋病毒，挫败感是在1982年和1983年初的时期，其中包括试图确定逆转录病毒现在被称为艾滋病毒的逆转录病毒是艾滋病的原因。1982年，我们在1982年获得了一些早期检测提示，但在1983年获得了更多证据，但我们无法将这种特定病毒的联系成为艾滋病的原因。

This took time and technological advances in our laboratory and even then to have sufficient information to convince the world was not easy. Science does not move unless you have verification – that is confirmation by other laboratories.

In that regard, when we developed the blood test we know this would facilitate linkage of HIV as the causative agent of AIDS because it was the kind of technique that could be easily reproduced around the world. However this linkage did not happen overnight. It did not happen with one virus detection. It happened by gradual accumulation of data over a period of a year and a half.

当您想到“我们解决了问题”时，您的艾滋病研究中是否有任何时刻？”

No doubt there was a key point in time in our work. That was the period of the fall of 1983 when we learned how to grow some of the strains of HIV in a cell culture system continuously and permanently.

我们立即知道，随着这一成功，我们将能够产生大量的艾滋病毒，以前没有大量的艾滋病毒可能有足够的量来进行世界血液检查（很快就会发生）。借助这些大量，我们可以获得有关该病毒的遗传信息，也就是说，我们可以理解其各种基因及其蛋白质。

作为一名科学家突然进入金钱和政治世界是什么感觉？

像大多数年轻医生一样，我只是去上学。除了学校以外，我几乎从未有过任何工作。我上大学，然后是医学院，然后我接受了对血液学和癌症感兴趣的内部医学人的培训。

After this long training period I came to the National Cancer Institute where I worked both on the wards and ultimately where I worked fulltime in laboratory research. You can imagine my world experiences were little. I was fortunate that my father did a lot for me, so I didn’t have to worry about anything.

然后，突然之间，您正在研究一种与患者见面的疾病 - 那是新颖的，我没有为此做好准备。其次，您正在与激进分子见面。第三，您正在遇到政客。第四，您有时会遇到名人。第五，您对您不知道的事情被问到。您不是所有事情上的专家，而是一些事情，但是您被问到您不知道的事情！此外，您也因专利问题而被律师世界吸引。您难道不想像这会有点恐怖吗？

您认为艾滋病毒感染周围有自满吗？

是的，今天有更多的自满情绪 - 这很明显，这是可以理解的，因为我们拥有如此良好的治疗，并且在巴西，中国和印度的仿制药生产有助于使治疗较低，并为发展中国家的人们提供了可用的治疗。

话虽如此，我们必须强调艾滋病毒/艾滋病不是治愈的疾病。人们显然寿命更好，更长，但仍然有病毒，这仍然会导致寿命稍短，癌症和心血管疾病的增加。

So the problem is far from over even in the people who are getting adequately treated. Of course a lot of people aren’t adequately treated. I heard an estimate that in the U.S. with all our care, only about 20% of people are adherent to drugs and getting the right therapy.

Why do young people need to be concerned about HIV infection today?

好吧，当然，抗逆转录病毒药物不能解决问题，而是使问题变得更好。我们仍然有被感染的危险。

If you were infected, you would have to take drugs for the rest of your life at this stage. Who likes to do that? Some of the drugs will have long-term side effects, although not very bad, so far. And as I mentioned, already there is an increase in incidences of cancer, cardiovascular disease and a shortened lifespan. So for all those reasons and more, you should not want to get infected and you should still be cautious.

Did AIDS change people’s attitudes towards minority issues?

Yes I do believe there is a change of attitude. I think one of the good things that came out of this horrible story of AIDS is that there is a greater understanding of differences in people’s sexuality. There is also a greater understanding of differences of people of North and South, East and West, and a greater cooperation between us. Additionally people are paying more attention to women’s rights.

You believe in a “functional” cure, but not a virological cure. What are the differences between the two?

I don’t believe there are any promising strategies for a total virological cure. Except in theory with some kinds of gene therapy which I do not see on the horizon for the world – maybe for a few select people but even then I think it is not really at all certain.

So I would not waste resources going in that direction. It’s difficult because you have cells that are what we call latently infected, impossible to find, that are long-lived and periodically apparently release virus. It seems that no matter how hard people try, those cells are still there, and will always be there. I don’t think we are going to get rid of every last such cell. Nor do I think it is necessary.

Functional cure would mean that an HIV infected person could keep the virus suppressed with evidence that the person wouldn’t ever need to take the drugs anymore. I think that is reasonable and will likely happen within the next 5 to 10 years.

The scientific community has been saying that the cure for AIDS will happen by 2020. It is feasible in your opinion, on a global level?

Yes I think it is feasible if we are talking about a functional cure. If we are talking about a virological cure I think that is fanciful. If a scientist says that they believe in a total virological cure by 2020 I would say that the scientist doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.

What were your contributions versus the French group? What do you think about the 2008 Nobel decision?

We opened the field by finding the first retrovirus of man, HTLV-1, the second retrovirus of man, HTLV-2 and we established the link of HIV to AIDS as the causative agent. Dr. Montagnier’s paper was certainly the first to report a virus different from our previous retroviruses (the HTLV’s) we discovered.

Dr. Montagnier’s paper precedes ours in the actual first detection of the virus that is later proven to be the AIDS virus. This is what we did in early 1984 – we had 48 different isolates of HIV from 48 different patients and we were able to demonstrate HIV was the cause of AIDS. Additionally, we developed the blood test, which gave a great deal of additional information showing HIV was the cause.

Dr. Montagnier and I have published together and have little if any disagreements. For example, we published together in Nature, which was Montagnier and Gallo, we published together in the New England Journal of Medicine, more recently which was Gallo and Montagnier on the discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS.

诺贝尔委员会由4或5位瑞典绅士组成 - 这是他们的决定。我很失望吗？是的，非常惊讶。但是我不抱怨 - 在有和没有我的同事蒙塔格尼尔博士的情况下，世界上许多国家都以许多奖项为我致敬。

Some of these – which are more than my fair share in a lifetime – include Germany’s Paul Ehrlich Prize which is their highest prize, Japan’s highest scientific and technological prize, and the Prince Asturia Spanish Prize, and the American Lasker Award, which I received twice. I’ve also received Israel’s top prize, the Dan David Prize and Canada’s Gairdner Award.

What is your current ambition?

My current leadership ambition is to leave a legacy of an exceptionally good Institute – the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine – which I co-founded. My second ambition is to leave the legacy of the Global Virus Network (GVN), which I co-founded only three years ago.

至于我的实验室野心，这是对癌症感染原因的更多了解。到目前为止，我有几个。我和我的同事们总共发现了五种不同的病毒。我想找到更多的感染联系，并证明它们参与了人类恶性肿瘤的原因。

I have a goal with AIDS as well. I would like to see a functional cure and I would like the IHV to contribute to that. More than that, I hope our vaccine candidate will be important in moving the field towards the ultimate truly successful preventive vaccine against HIV. We hope our candidate vaccine will start clinical trials at the end of the year or beginning of next year.

自宣布艾滋病毒作为艾滋病原因以来，在30周年纪念日就接受了罗伯特·C·加洛博士的访谈。2014年4月21日（佛朗哥M. Buonaguro）

For more information on IHV please visit www.ihv.org and on GVN please visit www.gvn.org