Former rival AIDS researchers conduct vaccine trials.(Brief Article)

1902 MAR 27 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Two former competitors have joined forces to raise money for research and trials of five potential AIDS vaccines.

Drs. Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo announced February 13, 2002, that Montagnier will join Gallo's Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore as an adjunct professor.

Montagnier was director of a Paris laboratory that identified the virus that causes AIDS in 1983. Gallo, his former competitor, helped to develop a blood test for the disease.

"There was a period of conflict, but we never stopped sharing information, sharing ideas," Gallo said. "And over the last 10 years we have become friends like we were friends before."

Their new partnership, the Gallo/Montagnier Program for International Viral Collaboration, will first work to raise $3-4 million to start the organization and organize the research, said Dr. William Blattner, director of the University of Maryland's Institute of Human Virology.

The group will work with the United Nations to develop research programs in areas with high populations of AIDS patients. The targeted areas include Baltimore, Rome, Montreal, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Central America and Asia.

Their goal is to run clinical trials on at least five potential vaccines to prevent the spread of the disease and treat those who already suffer from AIDS.