Max Essex

Max Essex

Myron Elmer "Max" Essex (born August 17, 1939 in Coventry (Rhode Island) ) is an American doctor and virologist , known for his contributions to HIV research and control, but also to viruses and cancer. He is the Mary Woodard Lasker Professor of Health Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health.

life and career

Essex graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a bachelor's degree in 1962 and veterinary medicine from Michigan State University with a PhD (DVM) in 1967, and received a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of California, Davis , in 1970. As a post-doctoral student he was at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. From 1972 he was assistant professor of microbiology and 1979 professor of virology at Harvard (School of Public Health). He was also a lecturer in the pathology department at Harvard Medical School from 1976 to 1992. From 1978 to 1982 he was head of the microbiology department at the School of Public Health, which was renamed the Department of Cancer Biology in 1982. Essex headed this until 1997 and then became head of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases (until 2006). Since 1988 he has been director of the Harvard Aids Institute (later called the Harvard Aids Initiative). From 1989 he was Mary Woodard Lasker Professor. From 1998 to 2006 he was also the John LaPorte Given Professor of Infectious Diseases.

In 1975 he was visiting professor in Tehran.

plant

Essex initially dealt with retroviruses in animals and, in collaboration with William A. Haseltine (* 1944), was one of the first to associate retroviruses with immunosuppressive diseases. He made a significant contribution to HIV research, for example by linking retroviruses with AIDS at an early stage (at about the same time as Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo ) and finding evidence that they could be transmitted via blood and stored blood, and demonstrated that they could be transmitted through heterosexual intercourse. He was involved in the discovery of STLV and SIV in monkeys and HIV-2 in humans in West Africa, and in 1984 he helped identify the surface protein Gp120 (HIV) (the protein is widely used to detect the virus).

He is currently studying the HIV-1c virus, which is particularly widespread in South Africa (in contrast to HIV-1b, which is more common in Europe and North America) and the role of genes in the defense against HIV (especially single nucleotide polymorphism ).

He has been developing HIV programs with Senegal , Thailand , Botswana , India, Mexico and China since 1986 and in 1996 founded the partnership between Harvard University and Botswana, which led to the establishment of a joint institute in Gaborone , Botswana. There he is leading a large study on the use of drugs against retroviruses as a means of prevention. His 2011 book Saturday is for funerals deals with the AIDS epidemic in Botswana and the turning point that led to the availability of antiviral drugs in 2006.

Essex is also looking at tumor viruses and their role in causing cancer. He began his research with studies on the feline leukemia virus .

Around 600 scientific publications and twelve books come from him.

Honors and memberships

In 1986 he received the Lasker ~ DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award . He is a nine-time honorary doctor. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Science.

In 1980 he received the bronze medal from the American Cancer Society and in 1985 the Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute. From 1978 he was on the medical advisory board of the Leukemia Society of America.

Fonts

• Editor with others: Aids in Africa, Springer 2002
• with Unity Dow: Saturday is for funerals, Harvard University Press 2011

Web links

• Homepage in Harvard
• Center for the History of Medicine, Harvard, to Essex

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Life and career data partly based on American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
2. ↑ Biography of Essex, Center for the History of Medicine, Harvard