Harvey J. Alter

Harvey J. Alter, born on September twelfth, nineteen thirty-five, is a distinguished American virologist and physician renowned for his groundbreaking research in infectious diseases. He served as the chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research at the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center, part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

In the mid-1970s, Alter and his dedicated research team made significant strides in understanding post-transfusion hepatitis. They demonstrated that the majority of these cases were not attributable to the known hepatitis A or B viruses. Collaborating with Edward Tabor from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Alter conducted pivotal transmission studies in chimpanzees, leading to the identification of a new form of hepatitis, initially termed 'non-A, non-B hepatitis,' which was suspected to be viral in origin.

This pioneering work culminated in the discovery of the hepatitis C virus in nineteen eighty-eight, a monumental achievement for which Alter was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in two thousand twenty, sharing this honor with Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice. His contributions to medical science have not gone unrecognized; he received the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States public health service, and the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research in two thousand.