In his background, David Ho doesn't differ much from other first-generation Chinese immigrants. After finishing fifth grade in Taiwan, he moved to the United States with his parents. When he first got there, he couldn't utter a phrase in English, but ten years later Ho graduated first in his class at Cal Tech and went on to Harvard Medical School.

AIDS was first discovered in five patients in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. Just a decade later, it has become the scourge of the century, whose very mention turns people pale with fear.

The Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York is one of the world's leading research centers on AIDS. （photo by Ku Tao-jung）

Researching behind a mask:

During the same period, Ho took step after step toward unravelling its mysteries. When the first cases of AIDS were being uncovered, he was serving as chief medical resident at the U.C.L.A. Medical Center. Two of the five original cases he treated himself. "Those cases were very unusual because they were occurring in previously healthy young men, who came down with a very unusual infections. They were all homosexuals who were highly promiscuous. Basically out of scientific curiosity, I got involved in AlDS research. But at the time we never expected it would turn out to be a major public health problem," Ho says. "Obviously AIDS was very unfortunate, but academically speaking, for me it was a very lucky choice." And so, as fate would have it, he became one of the first doctors to enter the field of AIDS research. His outstanding work earned him a Clinical Investigator Award from the National Institute of Health and got him appointed as director of the world's largest AIDS research institute in 1991.

While Ho's research work in AIDS is highly regarded, working all day long with this kind of infectious lethal disease isn't fun and games. Particularly at the beginning, when it was unknown how AIDS was transmitted, Ho says, "We used to be more cautious than we are now. We wore gloves, gowns and masks."

But from the perspective of a medical worker or medical researcher, Ho believes that the danger of being infected is something that goes with the territory. Doctors care for patients with hepatitis and other infectious diseases. Caring for such people is "one of those things it is your duty as a physician to do." Or one might say that the boldness of pushing forward in the face of danger is also a kind of foolishness. Yet Ho has used this foolishness to attain some significant achievements.

The joy and uncertainty of new discoveries:

Ho is a publicly recognized "pioneer" in researching AIDS. For him, the feeling of accomplishment in making new discoveries is what attracts people to scientific research. "These contributions are the things that keep us going. We only hate that there are not enough opportunities for them," he says. Even years and years of work does not guarantee important discoveries. Words can't describe the feelings when experiments yield results or when one gets a sudden burst of inspiration.

But from another angle, in the history of science there are numerous examples of early findings that were later proved wrong, and so Ho always feels ill at ease when publishing a new paper. But he holds that these mistakes are an inescapable part of the scientific process. On the one hand, amid intense competition, researchers want to announce new findings as soon as possible, but on the other hand they fear that they have not been thorough enough. "Speed and accuracy are like two ends of a seesaw, and scientists must find the right balance," he says. "They've got to time the announcement of research results accordingly."

Administration at the expense of research?

His outstanding research achievements got Ho appointed as director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center the year before last. Some people say that the talents needed for administration are completely different from those needed for research, and that once an outstanding scientist moves into administration, he can't turn back. About this, Ho is adamant.

"It is still most important to me to make major scientific contributions. I pay a lot of attention to my research projects," he says. "Of course, I also have a lot of administrative responsibilities. In the beginning it was very hard because I was trying to develop a new institute, bring on people, set policy, set the general direction and get the facility ready. All those things required a lot of administration. It is much better now."

When someone mentions a scientist, the idea that floats to mind is a disheveled absent-minded professor like Einstein, but Ho says that he knows a lot of scientists who don't fit the mold. "Actually the scientific work of a good scientist is always very organized. If you don't take into consideration the politics, administration--that anything that needs to be done is done in a timely manner--is easy for me. Politics is not. In politics you need to get to know people, to deal with people, and that sometimes is a long process." But basically Ho feels that he has nothing to complain about. His current work provides an excellent opportunity to turn his visions into reality. Medical research has traditionally been "low cost." University labs have been able to remain competitive, unlike in physics or engineering where huge teams have often been necessary to make any progress. AIDS research represents a turning point, where research requires the combined efforts of more scientists--doctors. molecular biologists, biochemists, cell biologists, immunologists, etc.--who look at the same problem from different angles to proceed with research. A special research institution like the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center is best suited for this kind of research.

In research, you can't always reap what you have sown, and many researchers often have to cope with feelings of failure. In a field as hot as AIDS research, the competition is particularly fierce. Working long-term under high pressure, Ho's way of coping is "to maintain an optimistic attitude."

"I think to work in this field you have to be an optimist by definition. That helps your long-term outlook. In the short term, you are constantly reinforced by the positive feedback you get from your experiments. Anytime you can contribute a new piece of scientific literature, it is rewarding. If over the course of a decade, you could have three or four major contributions, you have really done something. This is what keeps us going."

Thankful for Taiwan's academic pressure:

Ho thanks Taiwan's academic pressure for giving him his go-getter optimism. When he was in elementary school in Taiwan in the early '60s, there were still entrance examinations for junior high, and thus Ho had already felt exam pressure. You had to be very diligent to make the grade. With such a background, besides having language difficulties to get over in the first year, studying in American schools was easy and carefree.

And Chinese traditionally emphasize education. Ho's father didn't go to the states to get his doctorate until he was fifty. Their relatives and friends there were all students abroad, and the whole environment was very scholarly. What's more, in the 1960s there weren't many Chinese even in Los Angeles, and so they represented a true minority "There was always discussion about doing better than the others, the Americans, to be successful. The same is not good enough." Ho has continued to live by this dictum.

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David Ho, the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, is at the cutting edge of AIDS research. (photo by Ku Tao-jung)

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The Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York is one of the world's leading research centers on AIDS. (photo by Ku Tao-jung)