Pioneering HIV/AIDS researcher Flossie Wong-Staal remembered as 'strong woman in a man's world'
Molecular virologist who led team that first cloned HIV has died at 73
Dr. Flossie Wong-Staal, a molecular virologist whose work was instrumental in understanding and treating HIV/AIDS, has died. She was 73.
During her storied career, she contributed to groundbreaking research about retroviruses and played an integral role in cloning the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.
And she did it all with the kind of toughness and aplomb that stems from doing unprecedented work in a male-dominated field during an urgent and tragic health crisis, according to her longtime friend and colleague Dr. George Pavlakis.
"Flossie was both a friend and a colleague, and she was a very accomplished scientist, a very strong woman in a man's world," Pavlakis, section chief at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, told As It Happens guest host Nil Köksal.
"She was a strong woman. She was an elegant woman that did not want to show weakness. She was cool."
Wong-Staal died on July 8 at a hospital in San Diego, Calif., due to complications from pneumonia, her daughter Stephanie Staal told the Washington Post.
She leaves behind her husband of 18 years, two daughters, a sister, two brothers and four grandchildren.
'One of the best scientists I ever worked with'
Wong-Staal moved to the United States from Hong Kong to attend the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1973, she joined the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of fellow virologist Robert Gallo, according to the Post.
Gallo and Wong-Staal went on to publish more than 100 papers together in 20 years. According to a 1990 article in the Scientist, she was the most-cited woman in science during the 1980s, with 7,772 citations in academic journals.
"Flossie was one of the best scientists I ever worked with. Without her, loads of stuff in our lab would never have gotten done in the way they happened or with the same speed," Gallo told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "She was outstanding, and I will never forget her."
She was an integral member of Gallo's team, which was responsible for some of the earliest and most foundational research into retroviruses — viruses that insert their genetic material into a host's DNA and prevent the immune system from fighting back.
At the time, the scientific community at large dismissed the idea that retroviruses could infect human beings.
Then Gallo's team discovered the first human retrovirus — human T-cell leukemia virus type 1, or HTLV-1 — and demonstrated that it could cause cancer.
"Most of the hardcore scientists didn't believe in human retroviruses and called them 'human rumour viruses,'" Wong-Staal told Genomics and Proteomics in 2003, according to the Post.
"It wasn't a very pleasant atmosphere at the time, but we persisted."
The AIDS epidemic
Their research into retroviruses made Wong-Staal and her colleagues uniquely positioned to study HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS.
The AIDS epidemic of the '80s and '90s was massive and devastating, especially in the gay community, where it was responsible for killing entire generations of LGBTQ people.
According to the World Health Organization, 75 million people have been infected with the HIV virus since the start of the epidemic, and about 32 million people have died.
It was at the height of this crisis that Pavlakis first met Wong-Staal.
"That was the beginning of our collaboration and friendship, and we had some productive times very early on in the AIDS epidemic," he said.
"The climate at this time in Bethesda was pretty much what we scientists experience now with the new coronavirus: very exciting and troubling times … but also very rapid progress, lots of collaborations, lots of changes. Really a special time then like now."
In a National Institutes of Health (NIH) oral history of the AIDS epidemic, Wong-Staal called that period of her career "dizzying."
"You don't even know what to do first. I would say that those years were the highlight of my career, that period of discovery, intense discovery," she said.
Pavlakis said the work was "not for the faint-hearted.… So I think that her example really helped other women scientists."
Wong-Staal's team first cloned the HIV virus, which opened the door to truly understanding how it worked.
There were big egos and big interests and lots of controversies ... but there was also a tremendous amount of good and useful science that was done, which also has to be put on the balance. And Flossie did her fair share or more.- Dr. George Pavlakis
Her work provided the basis for medications that today allow millions of HIV-positive people to live long, healthy lives, as well as the building blocks that scientists like Pavlakis are still using in their efforts to develop a vaccine.
Gallo and the French virologist Luc Montagnier are now co-credited with co-discovering HIV — the result of a long and heated battle over whose team deserved more credit.
While Wong-Staal's name isn't attached to that discovery, her work on Gallo's team was crucial, according to those who worked with her, as she provided the molecular analysis required as proof.
"There is a big shadow over a lot of people in this era, quite unfortunately. Of course, there were big egos and big interests and lots of controversies, and there is enough blame to go around," Pavlakis said.
"But there was also a tremendous amount of good and useful science that was done, which also has to be put on the balance. And Flossie did her fair share or more.
"And actually, I believe she was a voice of reason."
Wong-Staal spent 17 years at NIH before leaving for UC-San Diego in 1990 to lead the Center for AIDS Research.
"Under her leadership, the centre would emerge as one of the world's authorities in the field. The drug cocktails used today to manage AIDS stem from Wong-Staal's studies of the variations in the virus's genetic material," the Scientist reports.
She was also, said Pavlakis, a good friend who always kept her cool, an "admirer of Grace Kelly," and a woman who "loved beautiful things and beautiful dresses."
"She was a very, very interesting woman," he said.
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview with George Pavlakis produced by Katie Geleff.
