Montagnier, Luc

▪ French scientist

born Aug. 18, 1932, Chabris, France

      French research scientist who received, with Harald zur Hausen (zur Hausen, Harald) and Franƈoise Barré-Sinoussi (Barré-Sinoussi, Franƈoise), the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi shared half the prize for their work in identifying the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of autoimmune deficiency syndrome ( AIDS).

      Montagnier was educated at the Universities of Poitiers and Paris, earning degrees in science and medicine. He began his career as a research scientist in 1955 and joined the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1972. Montagnier served as president of the Administrative Council of the European Federation for AIDS Research.

      In the early 1980s Montagnier, working at the Pasteur Institute with a team that included Barré-Sinoussi, identified the retrovirus that eventually became known as HIV. In the ensuing years there was much controversy over who first isolated the virus, Montagnier or American scientist Robert Gallo, and in 1987 the U.S. and French governments agreed to share credit for the discovery. Subsequently, however, Montagnier's team was generally acknowledged as having first identified the virus.

* * *