For George Lewis, MD, Robert C. Gallo, MD Endowed Professor of Translational Medicine at the Institute of Human Virology (IHV), one of IHV’s longest-serving researchers, the Institute’s legacy is measured not only in scientific discoveries, but in the lives changed when research meets real-world needs. 

When Dr. Lewis reflects on his decades at the Institute of Human Virology, he returns to a simple idea: the opportunity to take on an important problem and stay with it long enough to make a difference. 

For Lewis, that problem has been HIV prevention, particularly the role of the immune system and the development of vaccines. Over the past 30 years, his work at IHV has followed questions wherever they lead, from vaccine research to fundamental discoveries in immunology and virology. Findings that emerged unexpectedly along the way have opened new avenues of investigation, reinforcing a principle that has guided his career: scientific progress depends on pursuing questions whose answers are not yet known. 

“It’s been the opportunity to go address an important problem,” Lewis said of his time at IHV. “To be able to stay with it continuously over 30 years, where we’ve built a body of knowledge.” 

That continuity is part of what makes the Institute of Human Virology’s 30th anniversary more than a milestone. It is an opportunity to reflect on how a distinctive vision for research and patient care took shape and how its effects have extended from laboratories in Baltimore to communities around the world. 

A Different Kind of Research Institute 

Lewis was already an established basic scientist when the opportunity to join IHV emerged. His path to the Institute began years earlier, through a career in immunology, structural biology and the study of antibodies. After joining the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), he began collaborating with clinicians caring for children affected by HIV. 

At the time, effective treatments were not yet available. Working closely with clinicians gave Lewis and other basic scientists access to clinical specimens and, just as importantly, a firsthand understanding of the questions facing patients and the healthcare professionals treating them. 

The experience showed him what could happen when laboratory science and clinical medicine worked side by side.

When Robert Gallo, MD, came to UMSOM and the vision for IHV began to take shape, Lewis saw an opportunity to expand that approach. With Gallo and clinical leaders William Blattner, MD, and Robert Redfield, MD, helping establish the Institute’s direction, IHV could bring together basic science, clinical research and an international outlook under one institutional vision. 

Lewis remembers an early lunch with Gallo during the recruitment process. Their conversation quickly revealed a shared instinct: focus on the problem, identify what needs to be done and pursue it. 

“I liked the way he was thinking about stuff,” Lewis recalled. “I saw the opportunities.”

He and his wife, Roberta, joined the Institute in its early days, before the building was fully ready. Lewis has remained convinced of the founding vision ever since. 

What distinguished IHV, in his view, was not simply its focus on HIV. It was the way the Institute was designed to work: bringing scientists into close partnership with clinicians and connecting research in Baltimore with populations and scientific collaborators around the world. 

“Bench to bedside” has become a familiar phrase in academic medicine, Lewis noted. But at IHV, he said, it was not just an aspiration. It was built into the Institute’s design. 

Basic scientists and clinicians worked in close proximity, sharing questions, insights and opportunities to learn from one another. Clinicians brought their experience caring for patients and their access to clinical samples; researchers brought scientific tools and perspectives that could reveal new ways to understand disease. 

For Lewis, that everyday interaction has been one of IHV’s greatest strengths and a model worth protecting as the Institute looks to its next 30 years. 

From a Baltimore Clinic to a Global Response 

IHV’s story is inseparable from the history of the HIV epidemic itself. In the early years of the crisis, much of the attention in the United States and Europe focused on the populations and communities where cases were first being recognized. The scale of the epidemic in Africa was not yet widely understood. 

Lewis remembers how dramatically the scientific and public health landscape changed as researchers began documenting the epidemic in other parts of the world. Connections forged by IHV’s founding scientists helped bring greater attention to the crisis, while early work in Nigeria helped lay the groundwork for programs that would grow into a major international effort. 

He points to the evolution of IHV’s international programs as one of the Institute’s most consequential contributions. The work helped expand HIV testing and treatment, strengthen scientific and healthcare infrastructure, and build capacity in countries that had long been underserved. 

The results are tangible. IHV-supported global programs have helped provide more than 30 million HIV tests and treatment for approximately 9 million people. The programs have also trained more than 50,000 healthcare workers and supported the development of local organizations that now provide HIV treatment in Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia. 

For Lewis, the significance of these numbers is straightforward: they represent people who have received care and whose lives have been changed. 

“I think that scale and type of success needs to be the endpoint of anything you do in medicine, in science like that,” he said. “Particularly medicine, where the ultimate game is to keep people healthy.” 

He is equally emphatic about the importance of developing local expertise. During the early 2000s, Lewis helped establish laboratory capacity in Uganda through work with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Over time, he saw how investment in local researchers, healthcare workers and institutions could create lasting infrastructure not simply deliver services in the short term. 

Wherever he has worked internationally, Lewis has found talented people eager to do meaningful work. The challenge, he said, is to create the conditions that allow those talents to flourish. 

“The fact that IHV has been a part of a process where we’ve really developed enormous infrastructure in parts of the world where it didn’t exist before,” he said, “I think that’s fantastic.” 

The impact has also been felt in Baltimore. Lewis points to the growth of HIV care at  UMSOM, including the expansion of adult care services and the legacy of the Evelyn Jordan Clinic (the THRIVE Program at Midtown Campus). He also sees the Jacques Initiative and more recent community-based efforts as examples of how the Institute’s mission extends beyond the laboratory and into the places where people live. 

Programs that bring care closer to communities matter, he explained, particularly for people who face transportation, financial or other barriers to accessing services. The difference between having care available across town and having it within reach can be profound. 

For Lewis, these efforts embody the Institute’s founding commitment to connect scientific knowledge with the needs of real people. 

Discovery Takes Time and Curiosity 

While IHV’s global programs demonstrate the immediate benefits of translating research into care, Lewis cautions against measuring scientific success only by what can be seen right away. 

His own research illustrates why. Over decades, his work on antibodies and immune responses has contributed to the development of an HIV vaccine concept. A vaccine developed at IHV recently completed a Phase 1b clinical trial in collaboration with the Military HIV Research Program, marking an important milestone in a long-running effort. The research team is continuing experiments and preparing manuscripts as it investigates the findings and the scientific questions they raise. 

For Lewis, the value of the work extends beyond any single trial. Pursuing an HIV vaccine has led his team to investigate fundamental questions about immunology and virology—questions that may have implications well beyond HIV, including other infectious diseases. 

He also points to scientific advances across IHV, including work on defensins and the Institute’s epidemiology research. Among the achievements that stand out to him is the scale of HIV screening conducted in Nigeria, an undertaking he describes as extraordinary.

Such advances reflect different dimensions of IHV’s mission: understanding disease at the molecular level, identifying its patterns across populations and translating that knowledge into interventions that can improve health. 

Lewis knows that basic science can take years to reveal its full significance. A finding that appears narrow or esoteric today may eventually change how researchers understand a disease or develop a treatment. The outcome is not always predictable at the outset—and that uncertainty is part of the work. 

He experienced this firsthand early in his career, when he worked alongside scientists whose research helped transform fields such as cancer biology and the study of prions. Discoveries that emerged from those environments went on to have influence far beyond what the researchers initially imagined. 

That history informs his approach to science at IHV: follow the evidence, remain curious and be willing to pursue questions that do not have obvious answers.

The Next 30 Years: Protect the Things That Make IHV Different 

As IHV looks ahead, Lewis believes one of its most important priorities should be to preserve and strengthen the close relationship between basic science and clinical research. 

He believes that basic science needs to be built up further at the Institute, with more early-career researchers bringing new questions, energy and ideas. Sustaining IHV’s distinctive model, he argues, requires more than celebrating its history. It requires investing in the people and relationships that make discovery possible.

“I think it’s critical to keep the basic scientists and the clinical side very close to each other so they learn from each other,” he said. 

He also has a clear message for the next generation of researchers: resist the pressure to simply follow the crowd.

“Don’t take yourself too seriously,” Lewis advised. “Don’t do what everybody else does.” 

Academic research can reward familiar measures of success—publication counts, citation metrics, grants and promotions. Lewis believes those measures should never eclipse the purpose of the work itself. 

“What matters is, what do you bring that you didn’t know before?” he said. “That’s the only thing that matters in this business.” 

His advice reflects the spirit that drew him to IHV in the first place: the freedom to pursue important questions, the willingness to challenge conventional thinking and the determination to discover something new. 

For an institute approaching its fourth decade, that spirit is both a legacy and a responsibility. The scientific questions will change. The technologies will evolve. New diseases and public health challenges will demand attention. But IHV’s ability to respond will depend, in Lewis’s view, on its commitment to scientific curiosity and on the partnerships that connect discovery with care. 

Thirty Years of Work That Matters 

Asked what he hopes people will remember about IHV’s first 30 years, Lewis does not point to a single discovery or program. Instead, he reflects on the institution as a whole: the people who built it, the scientific questions they pursued and the services that grew from their work. 

“I think the thing I remember the most [is that] we set up a good operation,” he said, “and the guts of it are still there, doing well.” 

That, to Lewis, is the measure of IHV’s first three decades: an institution built to tackle a formidable challenge, willing to work across traditional boundaries and able to translate knowledge into benefits for people in Baltimore and around the world. 

He is not inclined to predict exactly what the Institute will look like 30 years from now. But he is clear about what should endure. 

“We did good things that were important to people,” he said. 

As IHV celebrates its 30th anniversary, those words offer a fitting measure of its past—and a challenge for its future. Continue asking difficult questions. Keep discovery connected to care. Invest in the people and partnerships that make progress possible. And never lose sight of why the work matters.