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A blood sample UW geneticist Dr. Arno Motulsky collected in Central Africa in 1959 for research on genetic resistance to malaria has lately become a key in tracing the origins of HIV infections in humans. The specimen is the earliest known HIV-positive blood sample.
The virus in the 1959 sample had degraded. However, recent retrieval of genes from that virus was made possible by newer technology that multiplies DNA fragments. Scientists isolated four small segments of two viral genes in the sample and analyzed this genetic material.
Motulsky and Dr. Eloise Giblett, a UW hematologist, had preserved the African specimens in the belief that tests would be discovered to study genetic markers in blood.
The 1959 specimen, obtained anonymously from a young man in Kinshasa, had shown a positive result when tested in 1986 for HIV antibodies.
Dr. Toufu Zhu, acting assistant professor of laboratory medicine at the UW, and HIV researcher Dr. David Ho of Rockefeller University, published the more recent findings in last week's issue of Nature. ¶