# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/harvey-j-alter
# Generated: 2026-08-14T01:44:58.150Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/harvey-j-alter"
name: "Harvey J. Alter"
slug: "harvey-j-alter"
description: "Harvey James Alter is an American medical researcher, virologist, physician and Nobel Prize laureate, who is best known for his work that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Alter is the former chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. In the mid-1970s, Alter and his research team demonstrated that most post-transfusion hepatitis cases were not due to hepatitis A or hepatitis B viruses. Working independently, Alter and Edward Tabor, a scientist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, proved through transmission studies in chimpanzees that a new form of hepatitis, initially called \"non-A, non-B hepatitis\" caused the infections, and that the causative agent was probably a virus. This work eventually led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus in 1988, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 along with Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice."
tagline: "American medical researcher"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Harvey_J._Alter.jpeg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1935-09-12"
livingStatus: "LIVING"
scores:
  popularity:           51.81
  momentum:             0
  historical:           21.37084533333334
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  70
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
sources:
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    title: "Harvey James Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%A3%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B1"
    title: "هارفي ألتر"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "هارفى التر"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "হাৰ্ভি জে. অল্টাৰ"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Харві Джэймс Алтэр"
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    title: "Харви Алтър"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "হার্ভি অল্টার"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ckb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DA%BE%D8%A7%D8%B1%DA%A4%DB%8C_%D8%A6%D8%A7%DA%B5%D8%AA%DB%95%D8%B1"
    title: "ھارڤی ئاڵتەر"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Χάρβεϊ Τζ. Άλτερ"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_J._Alter"
    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Harvey James Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "هاروی آلتر"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_J._Alter"
    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_J._Alter"
    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%95%D7%99_%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%98%D7%A8"
    title: "הארווי אלטר"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "हार्वे जेम्स ऑल्टर"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_J._Alter"
    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://hy.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D5%80%D5%A1%D6%80%D5%BE%D5%AB_%D4%B1%D5%AC%D5%BF%D5%A5%D6%80"
    title: "Հարվի Ալտեր"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_J._Alter"
    title: "Harvey J. Alter"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5677307"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Imported from discovery source: wikidata-dump