Robert Gallo
GVN International Scientific Advisor and Chair, Scientific Leadership Board
A Letter from the GVN International Scientific Advisor and Chair, Scientific Leadership Board
The concept of a Global Virus Network (GVN) began back in the 1980’s when a small group of virologists realized that virtually no working virologists had a global directive for researching the cause of AIDS during the earliest years of the epidemic. Conversely, important groups such as the World Health Organization which did have a global mandate for combatting the new disease had virtually no resident expertise in the kind of virus that was subsequently shown to be the cause of AIDS, namely, a retrovirus. Examining the history of other great epidemics of the 20th century, Influenza and Polio, reveals similar disconnects between available expertise and the urgent public need to identify causation and prevention modes.
GVN Centers, with strong working relationships among them, are poised to engage in any outbreak situation by providing the world’s only network of top basic virologists from around the globe covering all classes of human, and many animal, viral threats. GVN is also committed to training the next generation of virologists in order to meet the critical need posed by the graying of members of our own discipline, and to inform and educate policymakers and members of the public about the role of virologists in mitigating viral illness and preventing infections from taking hold in populations. This is especially important as my colleagues and I have noticed a significant decline in students entering the field of virology.
-Robert C. Gallo, MD
Scientific Advisory Board
Franco Buonaguro, MD.
Istituto Nazionale Tumori “Fondazione Pascale” National Cancer Institute, Italy
Arsène Burny, PhD
Gembloux Agro-Biotech, Belgium
Xiao-Ping Dong
China CDC, Chinai.
Volker Erfle, DVM, PhD
TU München Institut für Molekulare Virologie, Germany
John Glass, PhD
J. Craig Venter Institute, Maryland, USA
Glenda Gray, MBBCh, FCPAED
President, Medical Research Council of South Africa
Diane Griffin, MD, PhD
Professor, Johns Hopkins University
William Hall, MD, PhD
Professor of Medical Microbiology
Hideki Hasegawa, MD,PhD
National Institute of Infectious Diseases – Tokyo
James LeDuc, PhD
University of Texas Medical BranchGalveston National Labs
Alexey Mazus, MD
Moscow Center for AIDS Prevention Russia
Michael Oldstone, M.D.
The Scripps Research Institute, USA
Peter Palese, PhD
Professor and Chair, Microbiology
Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
Massimo Palmarini, DVM PhD FRSE
Medical Research Council Glasgow, UK
Janusz Paweska, DVSc
South African NHLS
Ulrike Protzer, MD.
Institute of Virology TU Munich, Germany
Victor Romanowski, PhD
National University of La Plata
Erica Ollmann Saphire, PhD.
La Jolla Institute for Immunology, USA
Andres Vahlne, MD
Karolinska Institutet