Nearly 70, Dr. Walter A. Scott, a University of Miami biochemistry and molecular biology professor, wasnt thinking about retiring.

The lab was his life, said Dr. Gwendolyn Scott, his wife of 42 years

Scott, who conducted breakthrough HIV-AIDS research, joined the UM Miller School of Medicine faculty in 1975, and was constantly funded by National Institutes of Health, his wife said.

In early January, she said, hed just applied for another grant.

But Walter Scott died unexpectedly at Jackson Memorial Hospital on Jan. 28, just four days before his 70th birthday. His wife said he suffered a stroke at their Coral Gables home.

Born Feb. 1, 1943 in Los Angeles and raised in Oregon, Scott was known for his work on HIV resistance to the drug AZT, and for mentoring hundreds of students during nearly 40 years of running a molecular virology research lab at UMs Miller School.

Scott held a bachelors degree from the California Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in physiological chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, where he met his future wife, now a UM pediatrics professor whose work on mother-to-fetus AIDS transmission significantly reduced the disease in newborns.

She heads UMs Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease and Immunology.

Her husband loved nature, especially birding, she said. He loved the Everglades, listening to jazz and nurturing his students.

Scotts research focused on the biochemical mechanisms of viral replication and antiviral drug resistance, according to a UM news release. He directed the Pediatric Retro virology Laboratory for the Universitys National Institutes of Health-sponsored pediatric AIDS clinical trials networks, and belonged to the NIHs Virology Technical Advisory Committee for the Division of AIDS and of its Review Panel for AIDS Discovery and Development of Therapeutics.

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Dr. Walter A. Scott, AIDS researcher, dies following stroke