Robert Gallo

Robert Charles Gallo (/ˈɡɑːloʊ/; born March 23, 1937) is an American biomedical researcher. He is best known for his role in establishing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the infectious agent responsible for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and in the development of the HIV blood test, and he has been a major contributor to subsequent HIV research.

In July 2024, Gallo joined the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida (USF) as the James P. Cullison Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and as the Director of the newly established USF Health Institute for Translational Virology and Innovation.  Concurrent to his USF Health appointments, Gallo also joined the Tampa General Hospital (TGH) Cancer Institute as Director of the newly established Microbial Oncology Program. He is Co-founder and International Scientific Director of the Global Virus Network (GVN) since its inception in March 2011.

Previously, he served from 1996 to March 2023 as Co-founder and Director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), where he was Emeritus Director from March 2023 until July 2024. He was also the first Homer & Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine at UMSOM from 2013 to 2024.

Gallo was the most cited scientist in the world from 1980 to 1990, according to the Institute for Scientific Information, and he was ranked third in the world for scientific impact for the period 1983–2002. He has published over 1,300 papers.