Robert Yarchoan (born 1950) is a medical researcher who played an important role in the development of the first effective drugs for AIDS.

Dr. Yarchoan attended Amherst College and subsequently received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Along with his colleagues Drs. Samuel Broder and Hiroaki Mitsuya in the National Cancer Institute (NCI), he co-developed and conducted the first clinical trials of zidovudine AZT, didanosine (ddI), and zalcitabine (ddC). These trials were the first to demonstrate that administration of anti-retroviral drugs could reverse the declines in CD4 cells and immunologic impairment caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. He also conducted the first trials of combination anti-HIV therapy. Dr. Yarchoan's research efforts have also focused on AIDS malignancies, and he led the first clinical studies showing that paclitaxel was an effective therapy for Kaposi's sarcoma and that thalidomide had activity in this disease.

Dr. Yarchoan is a co-editor of several journals. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and has been inducted as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is now Chief of the HIV and AIDS Malignancy Branch in the NCI.

References and links

• NIH Bio and Oral History of Dr. Yarchoan describing development of AIDS drugs
• Yarchoan R, Mitsuya H, Broder S. AIDS therapies. Scientific American 1988;259(4):110-9
• Saville, M.W., Lietzau, J., Pluda, J.M., Feuerstein, I., Odom, J., Wilson, W.H., Humphrey, R.W., Feigal, E., Steinberg, S.M., Broder, S., Yarchoan R. 1995. Treatment of HIV-associated Kaposi's sarcoma with paclitaxel. Lancet 346:26-28.

1950 births | Living people | American physicians