Breaking Boundaries: Flossie Wong-Staal's Impact on HIV/AIDS Research
Flossie Wong-Staal, a molecular biologist and virologist, was born as Wong Yee Ching in Guangzhou, China, in 1946. She was a key figure in recognizing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). After Wong-Staal and her family fled to Hong Kong, she excelled in academics and eventually took an interest in science. The first female in her family to attend university, she pursued both her undergraduate and graduate education at UCLA, earning a degree in bacteriology and a doctorate in molecular biology. Her contribution to the areas of bacteriology and retroviruses has been vital to understanding HIV and AIDS and paved the way for later advancements.
Whilst working with Robert Gallo at NIH, Flossie provided the definitive molecular evidence that human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV) can cause cancer. The research sealed the case that human retroviruses can be carcinogenic, a stance long dismissed by the research community. When HIV, a newly discovered retrovirus, emerged in the early 1980s, she was poised to make significant discoveries with Bob and a host of others in NCI and NIAID. Flossie was the first to clone HIV and determine the function of its genes, a major step in proving that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Flossie also discovered molecular evidence of micro-variation in HIV, which led to the use of "drug cocktails" to manage AIDS. She provided the molecular biology necessary for the second-generation blood test for HIV. She was the most-cited female scientist of the 1980s, with near 7,800 citations, according to an October 1990 article in The Scientist.
In 1990 she started the Center for AIDS Research at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), where her research thereafter focused on therapeutic approaches to thwarting HIV, primarily by gene therapy and ribozymes. She had an entrepreneurial spirit, and while at UCSD, she co-founded a biopharmaceutical company called Immusol. She retired from UCSD in 2002 and became Chief Scientific Officer for Immusol, which she renamed to iTherX Pharmaceuticals with her husband, Jeffrey McKelvy, a few years later when their research interest turned to finding better drugs for hepatitis C. Flossie accumulated numerous accolades, including being honoured as one of the top 50 female scientists by Discover Magazine (2002), #32 of the "Top 100 Living Geniuses" in a Daily Telegraph listing (2007); and induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame (2019).
