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French researcher Luc Montagnier, who has died at 89, shared the Nobel medicine prize for his vital early discoveries on AIDS, but was later dismissed by the scientific community for his increasingly outlandish theories, notably on Covid-19.
Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi shared the Nobel in 2008 for their work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in isolating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Their achievement sped the way to HIV tests and antiretroviral drugs that keep the deadly pathogen at bay.
Bitter rivalry
AIDS – acquired immune deficiency syndrome – first came to public notice in 1981, when US doctors noted an unusual cluster of deaths among young gay men in California and New York.
Montagnier had a bitter rivalry with US scientist Robert Gallo in his ground-breaking work in identifying HIV at the virology department he created in Paris in 1972.
Both are co-credited with discovering that HIV causes AIDS, and their rival claims led for several years to a legal and even diplomatic dispute between France and the United States.
Montagnier’s work started in January 1983, when tissue samples arrived at the Pasteur Institute from a patient with a disease that mysteriously wrecked the immune system.
He later recalled the “sense of isolation” as the team battled to make this vital connection.
“The results we had were very good but they were not accepted by the rest of the scientific community for at least another year, until Robert Gallo confirmed our results in the US,” he said.
The Nobel jury made no mention of Gallo in its citation.
In 1986 Montagnier shared the Lasker Award – the US equivalent of the Nobel – with Gallo and Myron Essex.
In 2011, to mark 30 years since the appearance of AIDS, Montagnier warned of the spiralling costs of treating the 33 million then stricken with HIV.
“Treatment…
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Source : france24
