Luc Montagnier (1932–2022), Nobel winner who co-discovered HIV
legacy.comLuc Montagnier was a virologist who shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for co-discovering HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.Montagnier was the founder of the Viral Oncology Unit at the Pasteur Institute, a renowned facility where infectious diseases are studied.
After founding the unit in 1972, he worked as its director, and it was in that capacity that he was sent a tissue sample that would lead to his crucial discovery.
In 1983, as AIDS was still a disease that baffled doctors, Montagnier received a piece of lymph node from a man with AIDS. He and his team identified a new retrovirus in the sample, initially calling it lymphadenopathy associated virus (LAV).
The virus was later renamed HIV after a bitter feud between Montagnier’s team and a team of Americans doing similar research.
Read more on legacy.com
