Giuseppe Pantaleo

Professor Giuseppe Pantaleo was born on June 17^th, 1956 in Bari, Italy. In 1980, he received the degree in medicine with full marks and honors, and in 1983, he obtained the Board in Clinical Hematology.

His scientific career in the field of immunology began in 1983 working on the development of a limiting dilution cloning system which was critical for the subsequent studies aimed at the phenotypic and functional characterization of circulating T lymphocytes. From 1985 to 1987, he was amongst the pioneers in the delineation of the molecular and biochemical mechanisms involved in signal transduction in human T lymphocytes.

In 1989, Professor Pantaleo joined the Laboratory of Immunoregulation, NIAID, NIH. He was the first to demonstrate the defective clonogenic potential of CD8⁺ T lymphocytes and the selective defect of HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Then, he studied the relationship between immune response and viral reservoirs in different anatomic compartments. He demonstrated that lymphoid organs function as a major reservoir for HIV, and that active virus replication occurs in lymphoid organs throughout the course of HIV disease including the prolonged period of clinical latency. These findings have completely changed the clinical and therapeutic management of HIV infection.

In the following years, he has continued to provide important contributions to the understanding the immunopathogenesis of HIV infection. Amongst these, it is noteworthy to mention the delineation of the virologic and immunologic events associated with primary HIV infection, and the observation that the proportion of CD8⁺ T cells involved in antiviral immune response was substantially higher compared to what previously estimated.