The advent of AIDS (acquired immunity deficiency syndrome) in early 1981 stunned the scientific community, as many researchers at that time viewed the world to be on the brink of eliminating infectious disease. AIDS, an infectious disease syndrome that suppresses the immune system, is caused by the human immune deficiency virus (HIV), part of a group of viruses known as retroviruses. The name AIDS was coined in 1982. Victims of AIDS most often die from opportunistic infections that take hold of the body because the immune system is severely impaired.

Following the discovery of AIDS, scientists attempted to identify the virus that causes the disease. In 1983-4, two scientists and their teams reported isolating HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. One was French immunologist Luc Montagnier (1932-), working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and the other was American immunologist Robert Gallo (1937-) at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda...