Echoes from the Past: Frederick Made It Possible to Implement the First Blood Test for HIV
On April 9, 1984, a special package from Bethesda arrived at Building 560 on the Frederick Cancer Research Facility campus. In an unusual move, it came not by courier but by scientist, who carried it directly to a biosafety level 3 laboratory, at the time one of FCRF’s few facilities for working with highly dangerous biological entities. Exposure to the box’s contents meant likelihood of a protracted death. Julian Bess Jr. remembers when Larry Arthur, Ph.D., brought that box containing two sealed flasks of HIV-infected cells into their laboratory.