|
Professor Souleymane Mboup is a renowned Senegalese scientist who holds PhDs in Bacteriology, Virology and Pharmacy. He is mostly known for having discovered, with other scientists from the US and Europe, a new HIV virus referred to as HIV-2, as opposed to HIV-1 which was discovered first.
Source: Pixabay
Professor Mboup was teaching microbiology at the School of Medicine and Pharmacy at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in the mid 1980s. In 1985, he brought to the United States a container with 30 vials of blood taken from Senegalese prostitutes. The blood samples were shared with the Chairman of the Harvard AIDS Institute, Max Essex. Professor Mboup's studies revealed that the blood could have been infected with a new AIDS-like virus.
Phyllis Kanki, associate Professor of Pathobiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, succeeded in isolating the new HIV virus strain from the blood samples from Senegal. Professor Mboup's reputation as a top AIDS researcher took a giant leap forward since then, and especially when, together with his peers, he presented their early findings about the new HIV virus at the International Symposium on African AIDS held in November 1985 in Belgium.
In 1994, after an eight-year study of the Senegalese prostitutes with HIV-2, Professor Mboup and other scientists wrote an article in Science Magazine showing that the HIV-2 virus was less virulent and less transmissible than HIV-1.
Professor Mboup found a way to separate DNA from white blood cells infected with HIV-2 and was able to significantly lower the HIV test cost from $25 to about $0.30 in Senegal; thus contributing in reducing the HIV infection rate.