The Miami Herald, Inc.; a Knight Ridder publication. One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132-1693 - Tuesday, January 16, 1996 Edition: FINAL Section: LOCAL Page: 1B Word Count: 659
Stephen Smith; Herald Staff Writer

Presiding over two dozen researchers and physicians: Dr. Robert C. Gallo, both lauded and vilified for his role in discovering the virus that causes AIDS and in developing a lucrative test that screens blood for the virus.

"Sometimes, I've defended competition -- it stimulates people," Gallo said Monday at the end of the two-day session. "If you keep it at a high level, if you keep it at a level of respect, that's good.

"But things that relate to human health, that cannot be delayed. It must be shared."

That sharing could translate into better health for the thousands of people in South Florida stricken with AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes it. Gallo, in the midst of establishing his Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore, proposed linking researchers worldwide via a high-tech network that would hasten the spread of the latest information on treatment.

The director of Mercy Hospital's AIDS and HIV center believes South Florida could earn a pivotal spot in such a network, opening a window to Latin America.

"I think the feeling of Dr. Gallo and the Institute is to get into places where there are a lot of patients and clinical trials can be run in a very efficient manner," said Mercy's Dr. Corklin Steinhart, who treated the late Pedro Zamora, a Miami man whose campaign to teach teenagers about the dangers of unsafe sex drew global notice after he became a member of the cast of MTV's Real World series. "There can be no place for egos, for not wanting to share important information, for not collaborating."

That ethos of cooperation threaded through the two-day meeting in Miami Beach. It was an unusual tableau for such a gathering: the Mediterranean Revival home of Robert Gray, a Washington heavyweight who leads the International Cancer and AIDS Research Foundation.

Gray is championing a campaign to raise $100 million for Gallo's Institute for Human Virology, which will study AIDS and cancers related to the disease. The physicians were supposed to gather in the Washington area, but the meeting shifted to Miami Beach because of last week's blizzard.

"When the weather turned bad, we said, 'Let's all go here,' " said Gray, a confidant of Republican presidents. "It's been heady. They get together, and they can't talk fast enough."

Much of what they talked about remained cloaked in confidentiality. Among the findings that surely spurred discussion: The discovery by Gallo and a squadron of scientists that three chemicals produced by the body block the progress of the AIDS virus. It is a finding that holds the promise of leading to new AIDS treatments.

"The bottom line: I feel more optimistic than I ever did for people with AIDS and HIV infections," Gallo said.

The scientist, who retired last year after 30 years with the National Institutes of Health, secured $9 million in direct payments from the government of Maryland to open his Institute of Human Virology.

But it was a political victory enmeshed in controversy -- the same controversy that has dogged Gallo for a decade. Four government scientists led a campaign to deny Gallo Maryland's money, resurrecting accusations that he hogged credit for his discoveries and trampled on research ethics.

A nasty -- and highly public -- scientific dispute pitted Gallo against French researchers. A year after Gallo's landmark discovery of HIV, the French protested that the HIV culture used by Gallo's lab contained a viral strain nearly identical to one isolated in a Paris lab.

Gallo, who denied any chicanery, contended that his culture was accidentally contaminated by the French material. The fracas spawned a lawsuit and ended in a settlement that split royalties earned from the discoveries between the two countries.

CAPTION: photo: Robert C. GALLO

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