David Ho

David Ho is a Taiwanese-American physician and virologist whose HIV research helped establish combination antiretroviral therapy as a way to suppress the virus.

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Anthony Fauci: Anthony Fauci is an American immunologist who led the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022. Fauci’s institute supported major HIV research and helped shape the response to AIDS.
HIV replication cycle: The sequence by which HIV enters a cell, copies its genetic material, and produces new virus particles. Ho measured this cycle to show that HIV reproduces continuously, even when symptoms are absent.
AIDS epidemic: The global epidemic of AIDS caused by HIV, recognized in the early 1980s. Ho’s treatment research emerged during an epidemic that demanded effective therapies.
Taiwanese Americans: People in the United States who have ancestry or family origins in Taiwan. Ho’s background is part of the wider history of Taiwanese American scientists and physicians.
Robert Gallo: Robert Gallo is an American biomedical researcher whose laboratory helped identify HIV as the cause of AIDS. Gallo’s discovery work formed part of the scientific foundation Ho’s treatment research built upon.
Combination antiretroviral therapy: Treatment that combines antiretroviral drugs to suppress HIV replication at multiple stages. Ho’s research helped establish this multi-drug approach as effective treatment for HIV.
HAART: Highly active antiretroviral therapy is an older name for potent combination treatment of HIV. The treatment breakthrough associated with Ho became widely known as HAART.
California Institute of Technology: The California Institute of Technology is a private research university in Pasadena, California. Ho studied at Caltech before pursuing medicine and biomedical research.
Luc Montagnier: Luc Montagnier was a French virologist who co-discovered HIV at the Pasteur Institute. Montagnier’s discovery of HIV made the virus itself the focus of Ho’s research.
Viral load: The quantity of virus in a measured volume of blood or other biological sample. Tracking viral load let Ho’s team quantify HIV’s rapid decline after treatment began.