Montagnier, Luc Antoine

Montagnier, Luc Antoine,

1932–, French virologist, M.D. Sorbonne, 1960. Montagnier was a researcher at the Medical Research Council at Carshalton, London (1960–63), the Institute of Virology in Glasgow, Scotland (1963–65), and the Curie Institute in Orsay, France (1965–72). He joined the viral oncology unit of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1972 and is now professor emeritus there. He is also director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, Paris, which he cofounded in 1993. Montagnier shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francoise Barré-SinoussiBarré-Sinoussi, Françoise,
1947–, French virologist, Ph.D. Pasteur Institute, Paris, 1974. She has been a professor at the Pasteur Institute since 1974 and was appointed head of its retroviral unit in 1992.
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 and Harald zur Hausenzur Hausen, Harald,
1936–, German virologist, M.D. Univ. of Düsseldorf, 1960. He was a researcher at the Univ. of Würzburg, Germany (1968–72), chairman of the Institute of Clinical Virology, Erlangen-Nürnberg (1972–77), chairman of the Institute
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 for discovering viruses that cause severe human diseases. Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi are credited with the 1983 discovery that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIVHIV,
human immunodeficiency virus, either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States.
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) causes AIDSAIDS
or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome,
fatal disease caused by a rapidly mutating retrovirus that attacks the immune system and leaves the victim vulnerable to infections, malignancies, and neurological disorders. It was first recognized as a disease in 1981.
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. Montagnier continues to work on treatments for AIDS and on the development of an AIDS vaccine.