Luc Montagnier, Nobel prize-winning virologist who discovered HIV, has died aged 89
Luc Montagnier rose to scientific prominence and won a Nobel prize for co-discovering HIV. His work made it possible to develop diagnostic tests and treatments that have saved countless lives. He spent his later years dismantling that hard-won reputation by espousing fringe theories and opposing vaccination. His baseless claims about COVID-19 — that vaccines would drive the emergence of dangerous variants, or that the virus was engineered — were weaponized by misinformation campaigns.
Montagnier was born on 18 August 1932 in Chabris, France. The Second World War marked his childhood with hunger and uncertainty, but his interest in science blossomed early. He embarked on the activity that has spawned countless researchers: tinkering with explosive compounds in a home laboratory. Later, he rigged a time-lapse camera to a microscope and studied chloroplasts’ response to light.
Montagnier worked in several laboratories before landing at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1972, building up his virology expertise along the way. He specialized in retroviruses — RNA viruses that can insert a DNA copy of their genetic material into the genome of their host. This, along with advances in culturing immune cells and his use of reagents that block antiviral proteins called interferons to awaken dormant retroviruses in cells, came in handy in 1983.
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Luc Montagnier (1932–2022)Luc Montagnier, Nobel prize-winning virologist who discovered HIV, has died aged 89
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