by Aline Manoukian
Paris — The world may be a few steps closer to winning the war against the killer AIDS virus thanks to the determined efforts of Dr. Ara Hovanessian and his team of researchers.
Newspapers from Paris to New York and every major city of the world have heralded the results of his research as a "breakthrough" and a major "coup against AIDS."
The French government has bestowed on him the rank of Chevalier in the National Order of Merit.
Dr. Hovanessian heads the Virology and Cellular Immunology Unit at the prestigious Pasteur Institute in Paris. He is also a Director of Research at France's National Center of Scientific Research; a cumbersome responsibility for a scientist who once said he might have become a musician if not for his mother who wanted him to go into medicine.
Dr. Hovanessian, a soft-spoken scientist, contemplated the two, but decided on a different path. "It's the curiosity element that drove me toward biochemistry. I am always searching for the Why and How in life," Hovanessian told a magazine reporter.
And that's exactly what he has been doing in research laboratories from Beirut to London and Paris since 1974. His professional titles include: Director of Research at the Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, France and Chef d'UnitÈ, at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
Born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1948, Dr. Hovanessian holds BSc and MSc degrees from the American University of Beirut and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from King's College, London.
It was his Ph.D. research on Interferon, the natural substance contained in the body which plays an important role in the defense mechanism against specific viral infections and also against cancerous growth, that attracted the attention of scientists.
Among them was Professor Luc Montagnier of Institut Pasteur, the renowned scientist credited for identifying the AIDS virus, who invited Dr. Hovanessian to join his team of researchers in Paris in 1978.
Dr. Hovanessian formed his own independent Cellu-lar Virology and Immunology Unit at Institut Pasteur in 1990. Composed of 14 researchers and six technicians, the Unit today is one of the world's vanguards in research on Interferon and the study of how this substance could stimulate the cells to become resistant to viral infection.
It was his work in this domain and his important research involving the HIV (AIDS) virus, that gave Dr. Hovanessian celebrity status around the world despite an initial campaign by skeptics within the scientific community.
The author of dozens of scientific papers, Dr. Hovanessian has lectured in France, England, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Japan, Canada, United States and Brazil.
His current projects on HIV are concentrated on the characterization of the different stages of the HIV infection in T4 lymphocytes.
The scientific jargon explaining his research may by complicated, and often incomprehensible to laymen, but the bottom line is simple.
With Dr. Hovanessian at the helm of one of the world's leading research teams, a treatment for the virus that causes AIDS may not be too far away.
Aline Manoukian is a Paris-based professional photographer and freelance reporter.
