Michael S. Gottlieb

Michael Stuart Gottlieb (born 1947) is an American physician and immunologist known for his 1981 identification of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) as a new disease, and for his HIV/AIDS researcher, HIV/AIDS activist, and philanthropic efforts associated with HIV/AIDS treatment.

A native of Highland Park, New Jersey, he graduated from the Rutgers Preparatory School (1965) and Rutgers University (1969). He graduated from the University of Rochester School of Medicine (1973) and trained in internal medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York. Following a fellowship in immunology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in 1980 Gottlieb accepted an assistant professor of medicine position at the UCLA School of Medicine in Los Angeles.

Beginning in January 1981, Gottlieb, then thirty-three, and several colleagues identified an apparent novel immunologic condition in homosexual men; the condition had common features of cytomegalovirus infection, pneumocystis pneumonia, mucosal candidiasis and Kaposi's sarcoma, all conditions found rarely outside of immunosuppressed patients. Gottlieb reported an initial five patient series in the June 5, 1981, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and published a more detailed report in December, 1981, in the New England Journal of Medicine. The New England Journal paper included the first description of the CD-4 T cell deficiency which is the immunologic hallmark of HIV infection. The work of Gottlieb and others suggested that these patients had an acquired immunodeficiency, characterized by depressed T-lymphocyte numbers and function, allowing for potentially fatal opportunistic infections. Initially, the researchers termed the disease Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID); in 1982 this syndrome became known as AIDS, a consequence of infection by Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

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