Harvey J. Alter
Biography
Research physician Harvey Alter dedicated his career to studies intended to ensure the safety of blood transfusions. In his research on viral hepatitis he co-discovered the Australia antigen which proved to be the key to detecting the hepatitis B virus. He was the key scientist on the research that led to the discovery of hepatitis C in 1969. These findings provided a means to reduce the incidence of hepatitis caused by blood transfusion to near zero. More recently he was working on a DNA approach to vaccines. Alter came to the NIH in 1961 as a Clinical Associate. He then spent three years at the Georgetown University Hospital. In 1969, he came back to NIH as a Senior Investigator in the Clinical Center’s Department of Transfusion Medicine. He then became Chief of the Clinical Studies Section and, in 1987, Associate Director of Research in the Department of Transfusion Medicine. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Lasker Award (200) and the Nobel Prize (2020).
Resources
Oral Histories
Non-Journal Sources
Journal Sources:
- Reflections on the History of HCV: A Posthumous Examination, Harvey J. Alter. ,Patrizia Farci, Jens Bukh, Robert H. Purcell, Clinical Liver Disease, 15, 564 (2020).
- The road not taken or how I learned to love the liver: A personal perspective on hepatitis history. Harvey J. Alter, Hepatology, 59, 4 (2014)
- Detection of MLV-related virus gene sequences in blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy blood donors, Shyh-Ching Lo, Natalia Pripuzova, Bingjie Li, Anthony L. Komaroff, Guo-Chiuan Hung, Richard Wang, and Harvey J. Alter, PNAS, 107, 15874 (2010).
- Detection of antibody to hepatitis C virus in prospectively followed transfusion recipients with acute and chronic non-A, non-B hepatitis. Alter HJ, Purcell RH, Shih JW, Melpolder JC, Houghton M, Choo QL, Kuo G. N Engl J Med., 321(22):1494-500 (1989).
- Posttransfusion hepatitis after exclusion of commercial and hepatitis-B antigen-positive donors. Alter HJ, Holland PV, Purcell RH, Lander JJ, Feinstone SM, Morrow AG, Schmidt PJ. Ann Intern Med.;77(5):691-9 (1972).
A "New" Antigen in Leukemia, Seralumberg BS, Alter HJ, Visnich S. . JAMA.; 191:541-6 (1965).
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