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Luc Montagnier, HIV discoverer who ended a pariah
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Farewell, Montagnier: French virologist and joint recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine, Luc Montagnier speaks during a press conference on vaccines and vaccination, on Nov. 7, 2017 in Paris. (AFP/Stephane De Sakutina) (AFP/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)
F
rench researcher Luc Montagnier, who has died at the age of 89, shared the Nobel medicine prize for his early, vital discoveries on acquired immune deficiency syndrome (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 2008 Nobel in Medicine for their work in isolating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
Their achievement sped the way to HIV tests and antiretroviral drugs that keep the deadly pathogen at bay.
Bitter rivalry
AIDS first came to public notice in 1981, when doctors in the United States 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 groundbreaking work in identifying HIV at the virology department he created in Paris in 1972.
Both are credited for discovering that HIV causes AIDS, and their rival claims led to a legal and even diplomatic dispute between France and the United States that lasted several years.
