HIV

HIV: Acronym for the
Human Immunodeficiency Virus, the cause of AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome). HIV has also been called the human
lymphotropic virus type III, the lymphadenopathy-associated virus and
the lymphadenopathy virus. No matter
what name is applied, it is a retrovirus. (A retrovirus has an RNA genome and a
reverse transcriptase enzyme. Using the reverse transcriptase, the virus uses its RNA as a template for making complementary
DNA which can
integrate into the DNA of the host organism).

Although the American
research Robert Gallo at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
believed he was the first to find HIV, it is now generally accepted that the
French physician Luc Montagnier (1932-) and his team at the Pasteur
Institute discovered HIV in 1983-84.

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