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sciguy52 t1_jd5m30r wrote

Reply to comment by JimmiRustle in Has the HIV virus become less deadly? by shaun3000

I was an AIDS research scientist in the 80's. We had the lab we worked in without any infectious material in it (did the live virus work in another room). Anyway, one day we had a plumbing issue and the plumber did not want to come into the lab where all of us were working in. I was thinking "dude you think I would be in here if there was a risk of me getting infected?".

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aphilsphan t1_jd5v5ex wrote

I was a grad student in the early 80s. There was a prof in our department who had been doing slow steady respectable RNA biochemistry work for 20 years. Not in HIV or even with whole viruses, with RNA viral enzymes. His work was barely funded, some semesters his 2 to 3 grad students taught, sometimes they’d get a break. By 1988 agencies leaving sacks of 50s on his doorstep. To his credit, this guy didn’t expand too much. He got a postdoc and better equipment and his students didn’t have to teach. It was fascinating to see that field go from backwater to front burner like that.

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