Flossie Wong-Staal, a molecular virologist most famous for co-discovering and first cloning the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, died July 8 of complications from pneumonia in La Jolla, California, at age 73.
Wong-Staal arrived at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1973 as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of fellow virologist Robert Gallo, where she quickly became an essential contributor to the team’s work studying retroviruses. Together, Gallo and Wong-Staal published more than 100 papers in 20 years, according to an article by the NCI, and a 1990 article in The Scientist credits her as being the most-cited woman in science during the 1980s, earning 7,772 citations in academic journals. Wong-Staal was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame last year for her contributions to the field.
“Flossie was one of the best scientists I ever worked with. Without her, loads of stuff in our lab ...
