Pioneering AIDs researcher Max Essex on a frenzied search for answers
Life stories from Paul Farmer, Drew Faust, Howard Gardner, Annette Gordon-Reed, Martin Karplus, Toshiko Mori, Steven Pinker, E.O. Wilson, and many more, in the Experience series. During an earlier pandemic that even today is only slowly relaxing its grip on the globe, pioneering AIDS researcher Myron “Max” Essex was one of the first to propose that a retrovirus was the cause of AIDS. The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health virologist’s work shed light on the nature of HIV, led to development of an HIV blood test, and later focused on fighting the global pandemic at its heart — in southern Africa. As the head of the Harvard AIDS Institute, now the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health AIDS Initiative (HAI), Essex established the Botswana Harvard Partnership, a collaboration between the University’s AIDS scientists and the government of Botswana. Though HIV/AIDS has become a chronic condition for many — 23.3...