The Dr. Tovi Comet-Walerstein Award is given annually to a distinguished scientist whose contribution was unique to basic and/or applied research and was widely recognized as a major breakthrough for future research and treatment.
Dr. Gallo's long career has followed one theme: the study of human blood cell biology, these cells' growth and the causes of abnormalities such as leukaemia and HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Gallo pioneered the field of human retrovirology in 1980 by discovering the first human retrovirus (HTLV-1) and showing it to cause a particular form of human leukaemia. A year later, he and his group of researchers discovered the second known human retrovirus (HTLV-2), which was followed in 1984 by the landmark discovery by Dr. Gallo and his colleagues of HIV. Gallo's team published the first results to show that HIV was the cause of AIDS and developed the life saving HIV blood test.
Dr. Gallo and a team of scientists, which includes an Israeli researcher, are currently in advance stages of research aimed at creating a HIV virus vaccine. Dr. Gallo explained to IHTIR that the HIV virus has many strains making the research difficult. He did not predict when he expects to have the vaccine ready but he indicated that it would be in the foreseeable future.
"Currently we can successfully treat most strains of HIV, if not all. The difficulty in treating HIV is that the virus enters the human gene and is therefore difficult to access," stated Dr. Gallo
Dr. Robert C. Gallo, founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) and a co-discoverer of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), received the 2005 Dr. Tovi Comet-Walerstein Science Award at Bar-Ilan University's Safdie Institute for AIDS and Immunology Research in Ramat Gan, Israel.