 Dr.
Robert Yarchoan played a major role in discovering and developing
effective therapies against AIDS. In 1984, he joined Dr. Samuel
Broder to work in the National Cancer Institute's newly formed
AIDS therapy program. Along with Drs. Broder and Hiroaki Mitsuya,
Yarchoan conducted the initial clinical testing of many anti-HIV
drugs, including AZT and ddI.
"We had one patient who really made an impression,"
Dr. Yarchoan recalls. "A nurse from New York had gotten
AIDS through a blood transfusion and had a horrible fungal infection
of her fingernail. Her nail was quite ratty. When we gave her
AZT, the infection cleared up, and you could see where the normal
nail was starting to grow. That was very dramatic for us."
As more information about HIV came in during the early years
of the outbreak, Dr. Yarchoan also remembers the shock of realizing
"there were half a million to a million people infected
with this lethal virus who did not know it. There was this weird
feeling of having this cataclysmic information that the world
was not aware of."
Dr. Yarchoan is currently the chief of NCI's HIV and AIDS Malignancy
Branch, where he continues to conduct research and develop novel
therapies for HIV infection and AIDS-related cancers. |
