Dr Robert Gallo, of the U.S. National Institute of Health, photographed at a conference on AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) held in Paris, Summer 1986. Gallo was the leader of one of the research teams who first isolated the causative agent of AIDS in early 1984. Gallo designated the agent, a retrovirus, HTLV-111 (human T-cell lymphotrophic virus type 3): the same virus had been independently isolated in 1983 by a French team from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, led by Prof. Luc Montagnier, who called the virus LAV (lymphodenopathy-associated virus).