Harvey J. Alter

Harvey J. Alter

Harvey James Alter (born September 12, 1935) is an American medical researcher, virologist, physician and Nobel Prize laureate, who is best known for his work that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Alter is the former chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. In the mid-1970s, Alter and his research team demonstrated that most post-transfusion hepatitis cases were not due to hepatitis A or hepatitis B viruses. Working independently, Alter and Edward Tabor, a scientist at the U.S. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Harvey J. Alter has received more than 205,992 page views. His biography is available in 48 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 47 in 2019). Harvey J. Alter is the 144th most popular physician (down from 119th in 2019), the 1,086th most popular biography from United States (down from 917th in 2019) and the 14th most popular American Physician.

Harvey J. Alter is an American medical researcher who is famous for his contributions to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Along with his colleagues, Alter demonstrated that a significant number of cases of chronic hepatitis were not caused by hepatitis A or B viruses, and he eventually identified the previously unknown hepatitis C virus as the cause of these cases. His discovery led to the development of new diagnostic tests and treatments for hepatitis C, which has had a major impact on public health worldwide. Alter was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 for his work on the discovery of the hepatitis C virus.