Luc Antoine Montagnier

Luc Antoine Montagnier was born in Chabris, Indre, France. He earned degrees in science and medicine at the University of Paris and did postgraduate oncology research in Britain before joining the Institut Pasteur in Paris in 1972, where he established the Viral Oncology Unit to study retroviruses and oncogenes.

In early 1983, amid the terrifying global emergence of AIDS, Montagnier and his Pasteur colleagues Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Jean-Claude Chermann isolated a novel retrovirus from the lymph node of a patient, naming it lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV), later renamed HIV. Their discovery established the viral etiology of AIDS, paving the way for diagnostic screening of donor blood supplies and the development of antiretroviral therapies that turned AIDS into a manageable condition. In 2008, Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Montagnier was a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour and co-founded the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention.