Dr. Robert Gallo, the American scientist who co-discovered HIV as the cause of AIDS, is to visit Jamaica to meet with local stakeholders next month.

Dr. Gallo had initially been due in the island yesterday as the guest of local biochemist Dr. Henry Lowe, at the public presentation of his research into the ability of extracts from two endemic Jamaican plants to kill tumours from five different cancers, including two that are AIDS-related.

He is the director of the Institute of Human Virology at University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute where Dr. Lowe's research partner Dr. Joseph Bryant also works.