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herwikiorg on Instagram: "In December 1982, a mysterious disease was killing people and no one knew why.Doctors were helpless.Scientists were stuck.The virus…"
In December 1982, a mysterious disease was killing people and no one knew why.Doctors were helpless.Scientists were stuck.The virus was destroying the very immune cells it infected, making it almost impossible to find.Françoise Barré-Sinoussi was a trained retrovirologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.She already knew how to detect the one enzyme that could prove a retrovirus was present.A group of French physicians came to the lab and asked one question: is this disease caused by a retrovirus?Françoise got to work.She biopsied a lymph node from a patient in the early stages of disease because the immune cells in late-stage patients were already dead.In the second week, she detected reverse transcriptase activity in the cultures.The virus was there.Then the cells started dying and the signal dropped.Most scientists would have lost the experiment.Françoise added fresh donor lymphocytes to the dying culture.The virus jumped to the new cells.Activity surged again.She had isolated a living retrovirus from an AIDS patient.They named it LAV. It was later renamed HIV.That single discovery led to diagnostic blood tests that helped control the spread of a global epidemic.It informed treatment policies and paved the way for antiretroviral drugs that keep millions alive today.Françoise was listed as first author on the 1983 paper that announced HIV to the world.In 2008, she won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.She published over 240 papers, trained a generation of researchers, and spent decades working with developing nations fighting HIV.In 2009, when the Pope said condoms don’t work against AIDS, she wrote him a public letter and told him he was wrong.She dedicated her entire career to a virus that has killed over 40 million people.And most people have never heard her name.Hi, I’m Olivia and I’m building HerWiki—Wikipedia for Women.If Françoise’s story inspired you, like/repost and follow for more.You can also comment “BOOK” and grab a copy of YOU STAND ON HER SHOULDERS.100% proceeds go to HerWiki’s research and development initiatives.All my love, Olivia 💜
