Dr. Harvey Alter is an American medical researcher, virologist and physician. Together with Michael Houghton he won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. His work was instrumental in providing the scientific basis for instituting blood donor screening programs that have decreased the incidence of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis to near zero.

Dr. Alter is a Senior Scholar at the NIH Clinical Center’s Department of Transfusion Medicine and shares the award with Michael Houghton, Ph.D., University of Alberta, Canada, and Charles M. Rice, Ph.D., Rockefeller University, New York City.

He was also awarded the Clinical Lasker Award in 2000. In 2002, he became the first Clinical Center scientist elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and in that same year he was elected to the Institute of Medicine. Only a small number of scientists nationally are elected to both of these scientific societies.

Dr. Harvey Alter earned his medical degree at the University of Rochester Medical School, and trained in internal medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital and at the University Hospitals of Seattle.