Professor Errol Morrison (left) engages Dr. Robert Gallo, internationally acclaimed scientist and co-discoverer of HIV, in a conversation at a public lecture held at the Hilton Kingston hotel, New Kingston, on Monday. The lecture was organised by the Environmental Health Foundation of Jamaica in association with Blue Cross of Jamaica and the Hilton hotel. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

John Myers Jr., Staff Reporter

Jamaica could become a centre in viral research and HIV/AIDS if plans by the internationally acclaimed researcher and co-discoverer of the HIV, Dr. Robert Gallo, to establish a state-of-the-art laboratory materialises.

Professor Errol Morrison, the former president and CEO of Blue Cross of Jamaica, says Dr. Gallo was currently engaged in discussions with the University of the West Indies (UWI) to build a lab to continue research into HIV and other viruses.

"He has an interest in Jamaica and he has funding that he would like to bring to set up a laboratory to study the viruses here in Jamaica," Professor Morrison told The Gleaner on Monday following a public lecture by Dr. Gallo at the Hilton Kingston hotel, New Kingston.

Re-establish contacts in Jamaica

Dr. Gallo said with his visit to Jamaica, "I thought that ... I would re-establish contacts in Jamaica in the hope to stimulate a collaboration that could begin with the exchange of some people where some of our clinical people could come and tell what's going on and what's the latest and they would be helpful to you and maybe there could be young people sent to us for training purposes for a year or two years then go back to Jamaica to build collaborative efforts."

Professor Morrison, who is currently the president of the University of Technology, said the world-renowned scientist was interested in having the research facility in Jamaica because he had a close relationship with people from the medical and research fraternity in Jamaica.

"He's been meeting with the University of the West Indies fraternity because they are the furthest in our field in having the infrastructure ready to develop that kind of programme," Professor Morrison noted.

Dr. Gallo is the co-founder and current director of the Institute of Human Virology and Division of Basic Science at the University of Maryland in the United States.

In addition to the discovery of Human Immunodificiency Virus, he also found a natural compound known as chemokines that is able to block the HIV virus and halt the progression to AIDS. He also made other discoveries that have led to both diagnostic and therapeutic advances in cancer and AIDS.