Luc Montagnier

Luc Montagnier
Montagnier in 2008
Born(1932-08-18)18 August 1932
Chabris, Indre, France
Died8 February 2022(2022-02-08) (aged 89)
Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Alma mater
Known forCo-discoverer of HIV
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsVirology
Institutions

Luc Montagnier (US: /ˌmɒntənˈjeɪ, ˌmoʊntɑːnˈjeɪ/ MON-tən-YAY, MOHN-tahn-YAY,[2][3] French: [lyk mɔ̃taɲe]; 18 August 1932 – 8 February 2022) was a French virologist and joint recipient, with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen, of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).[4] He worked as a researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and as a full-time professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.[5]

In 2017, Montagnier was criticised by other academics for using his Nobel prize status to "spread dangerous health messages outside of his field of knowledge".[6] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier promoted the conspiracy theory that SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus, was deliberately created and escaped from a laboratory.[7] Such a claim has been rejected by other virologists.[8][9][10]

  1. ^ "Louis-Jeantet Prize". Archived from the original on 31 May 2021. Retrieved 4 September 2018.
  2. ^ "Montagnier". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
  3. ^ "Montagnier". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference BBC_Nobel was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference sjtu was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ France, Connexion. "French Nobel prize winner: 'Covid-19 was made in lab'". www.connexionfrance.com. Retrieved 24 July 2021. The letter read: 'We, academics of medicine, cannot accept that one of our peers is using his Nobel prize [status] to spread dangerous health messages outside of his field of knowledge.'
  7. ^ Klepper, David; Amiri, Farnoush; Dupuy, Beatrice (26 April 2021). "The superspreaders behind top COVID-19 conspiracy theories". AP News.
  8. ^ Andersen, Kristian G.; Rambaut, Andrew; Lipkin, W. Ian; Holmes, Edward C.; Garry, Robert F. (April 2020). "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2". Nature Medicine. 26 (4): 450–452. doi:10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9. ISSN 1546-170X. PMC 7095063. PMID 32284615.
  9. ^ Frutos, Roger; Gavotte, Laurent; Devaux, Christian A. (18 March 2021). "Understanding the origin of COVID-19 requires to change the paradigm on zoonotic emergence from the spillover to the circulation model". Infection, Genetics and Evolution. 95: 104812. Bibcode:2021InfGE..9504812F. doi:10.1016/j.meegid.2021.104812. ISSN 1567-1348. PMC 7969828. PMID 33744401.
  10. ^ Grimes, David Robert (26 April 2021). "COVID Has Created a Perfect Storm for Fringe Science". Scientific American. Retrieved 4 August 2021.