Robert C. Gallo

What is your favorite paper?Figure 1I don't have any, because they are just transient things. ... There are a lot of steps, I think, in terms of [creating] long-term value.But if you had to choose?For me, IL-2 and HTLV-1, because they opened the field of human retrovirology. We published IL-2 in 1976 in Science, 1 and we published the first discovery of the human retrovirus in 1980 in PNAS.2Do you regret the high-profile controversy regarding the discovery of HIV with Luc Montagnier's group at t

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I don't have any, because they are just transient things. ... There are a lot of steps, I think, in terms of [creating] long-term value.

For me, IL-2 and HTLV-1, because they opened the field of human retrovirology. We published IL-2 in 1976 in Science, ¹ and we published the first discovery of the human retrovirus in 1980 in PNAS.²

It wasn't of my making. So sure I regret it. But ... I never made a claim that I should get all the credit. I never even said I discovered the virus. I said we know the cause of the disease. We've proven it. And we have a blood test that will save lives beginning as fast as it can be applied. ... The publicity and the media got way ahead of us, and the institutes and the governments had a war over patent rights. ... [Montagnier] and I do ...

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