Opinion: 50 years ago, my colleagues and I pursued basic research science that became revolutionary — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- Robert C. Gallo and colleagues published a paper 50 years ago in September describing interleukin-2 (IL-2), one of the first cytokines discovered and a protein essential to the growth and regulation of T cells.
- IL-2 enabled the discovery of the first human retroviruses — HTLV-1 (the only known cause of a human leukemia), HTLV-2, and ultimately HIV — and supported the development of a blood test that helped protect the blood supply.
- HTLV-1 provided the first proven demonstration that a virus could cause human leukemia and directly cause a normal cell to become malignant.
- Steve Rosenberg used IL-2 to pioneer cancer immunotherapy, while Rafi Ahmed went on to help define the understanding of T-cell memory and immune responses to infection and vaccination.
- The experimental approach from the original paper became a model for studying other human cytokines, spawning a vast field of interleukins regulating immune responses and inflammation.
- Gallo warns against directing research funding primarily toward work with immediate and obvious applications, arguing the most consequential discoveries come from basic questions whose ultimate impact no one could have predicted.
Why it matters: Gallo's firsthand account of how a 1976 hunt for T cell growth factors cascaded into HIV's identification, a blood-supply screening test, and cancer immunotherapy offers a concrete case study at a moment when federal science funding is being debated. His core argument — that requiring scientists to predict practical results before asking a question would foreclose medicine's biggest advances — is a direct rebuttal to calls to prioritize applied research.
Ask SkimNews
