1932-

French Virologist

Since 1972 Luc Montagnier has headed the Viral Oncology Unit of the Pasteur Institute. Under his leadership, in 1983 this unit discovered the retrovirus later named the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) and identified it as the causative agent of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Two years later Montagnier's team isolated the second-known human AIDS virus, HIV-2. Montagnier has established an international network of researchers to study the AIDS pathogenesis (how the disease originates and develops). He is convinced that such knowledge will lead to the development of a vaccine against this fatal disease, which now effects millions of individuals worldwide.

Montagnier studied both medicine and biology at the University of Poitiers and then at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1957 he decided on a career in virology and spent four years doing research in the United Kingdom. His early work focused on the relationship of viruses...