French virologist Luc Montagnier died in Paris on Tuesday. He died on December 31, 2012 at the age of 8
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the HIV virus. In addition to this, there are many evocative stories in his life. In later years, for example, he used "maverick" experiments to overturn an existing scientific principle and distance himself from his peers.
The discovery of the H.I.V virus began at the Ste Institute in Paris, France. At the time, Dr. Montanier was the head of the laboratory for the study of viral oncology, and a lymph node biopsy sample from a 33-year-old AIDS patient was delivered to him.
The patient's doctor, Dr. Willy Rozenbaum, wanted Dr. Montanier, a retrovirologist, to do the test. But AIDS (then named Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) was a mystery, with unknown causes, no diagnostic tests, and no effective treatments. However, many doctors instinctively suspect that the disease is caused by retroviruses, a pathogen that enters the DNA of host cells and gains control because the virus usually works the opposite way. Hence the name.
Dr. Montanier's team found the "culprit" of AIDS from this sample, a type of retrovirus that had never been seen before. It was named L.A.V., meaning a virus associated with lymphadenopathy, and is the first letter of the English word for that name.
Another research team at the Institut Pasteur, headed by Françoise Barré-Sinusi Françoise Barré-Sinoussi), (who later shared the Nobel Prize with Dr. Montagnier), reported their landmark discovery in the May 20, 1983 issue of the journal Science, which also suggested that L.A.V. may have been the virus that causes AIDS.
The following year, Dr. Gallo, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, was founded in the United States. Robert Gallo) published four articles in the same issue of the journal Science confirming the link between retroviruses and AIDS. Dr. Gallo called his virus H.T.L.V.-III.
Initially, there were questions about whether the Montagnier team in France and the Gallo team in the United States found the same virus or two different viruses.
When it was discovered that the two samples came from the same patient, the scientists questioned whether Dr. Gallo might have obtained the virus unintentionally or intentionally from Pasteur's study.
As a result, an open dispute between two top scientists who had worked together in friendship broke out that the whole world knew, and soon spread from the scientific community to the mainstream media of the masses. On the surface, this dispute between who is the discoverer and the patent rights is actually behind the narrow jealousy, conceit, and struggle. This deviates from the original meaning of scientific exploration, and even violates the purpose of scientific exploration.
Dr. Montanier sued Dr. Barry of the National Institute of Research, applying for and obtaining a U.S. patent with his findings. The lawsuit was settled out of court. The following year, U.S. President Reagan and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac stepped in to sign an agreement to share the patent fees and declare both scientists the discoverers of the virus.
In 1986, the virus of AIDS, known in the United States as H.T.L.V.-III, in the French as L.A.V., was officially and officially named H.I.V., that is, the human immunodeficiency virus.
Dr. Montagnier and Dr. Barre shared many dazzling accolades, including the 1986 Albert Lasker Prize for Medical Research, which recognized Dr. Montagnier's discovery of the virus and Dr. Gallo's association with AIDS. The dispute between the two scientists ended in 2002 when they announced they would collaborate on the development of an AIDS vaccine and was completely dismissed, winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 2008.
Dr. Gallo of the United States has long been thought to have made H.I.V. discovery, but the Nobel Committee on Physiology or Medicine chose Dr. Montanier, which the Nobel Committee said, without a doubt, "who made the basic discovery about HIV".
In his acceptance speech, Dr. Montagnier expressed the opposite point of view from other AIDS experts, saying: "HIV is the main cause, and it also needs the help of 'accomplices' to get sick. "Accomplices" refer to other infections that may come from bacteria and reduced immunity.
At the time, 33 million people were infected with HIV, resulting in more than 25 million deaths.
After working on H.I.V., Dr. Montanier and worked on experiments that challenged traditional scientific principles, much to the shock and even anger of many of his colleagues. An experiment published in the journal he founded in 2009 claimed that DNA emits electromagnetic radiation. He believes that some bacterial DNA continues to signal long after the infection has been cleared.
"He's always full of controversy, but I have the utmost respect for the team he's assembled," said Donald M. Thompson. Donald P. Francis said he was in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. The head of the CDC's AIDS Laboratory was one of the first scientists to suggest that AIDS may be caused by infectious pathogens.
In a 2010 interview with The Science magazine, Dr. Montanier defended his theory about DNA, saying, "This is not quacking. These are real phenomena that deserve further study. In the same year, he accepted a professorship at Shanghai Jiaotong University to study the emission of electromagnetic waves from DNA. He returned to Paris two years later.
Speaking at a conference on autism in 2012, Dr. Montani sparked another uproar among scientists, suggesting that long-term antibiotics could successfully treat the disease.
Born on August 18, 1932 in Chabris, France, Luc Montagnier was the only son of Antoine and Rousselet Montagnier. The father was an accountant and the mother was a housewife. He once told the International Herald Tribune that his father had a makeshift chemistry lab in his garage at home, and he inspired him to become a doctor so he could "explain the world through science."
Dr. Montagnier received degrees from the Universities of Poitiers and Paris, as well as the Sorbonne, where he taught physiology. From 1960 to 1963 he worked in the Virology Department of the Medical Research Council in London and for a year at the Institute of Virology in Glasgow. He and a colleague there discovered the first double-stranded RNA virus and a new way to grow cancer cells.
Dr. Montanier returned to Paris to lead a laboratory at the Institut Curie, and in 1972 was founded at the Institut Pasteur and led the Department of Viral Oncology, where the team he led discovered the virus that caused AIDS.
He married Dorothea Ackerman in 1961. They have two daughters, Anne-Marie and Francine, and a son, Jean-Luc.