Beatrice h hahn biography for kids

American biologist

Beatrice H. Hahn (born February 13, ) is an American virologist and biomedical researcher best known for work which established that HIV, the virus causing AIDS, began as a virus passed from apes to humans.^[1][2][3] She is a professor of Medicine and Microbiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.^[4][5] In November , Discover magazine listed Hahn as one of the 50 most important women scientists.^[6]

Hahn discovered that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) originated in other primates and spilled over to humans.^[4] Hahn and her research group established that wild-living chimpanzees in southern Cameroon were a natural reservoir of the closely related simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs).

The team developed non-invasive techniques for gathering genetic data. By making comparisons between the genes of HIV-1 and SIVs, they found that SIVs