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]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier promoted the theory that SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus, may have escaped from a laboratory.[6] The origin of COVID-19 has been a topic of much scientific and political debate. While many scientists initially favored the hypothesis that the virus emerged naturally from an animal reservoir,[7] the absence of a confirmed animal source has led to increased consideration of the possibility that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.[8] A 2023 classified intelligence report from the U.S. Department of Energy concluded that a laboratory leak was the most likely origin of the pandemic, although this assessment was made with "low confidence." Other agencies in the U.S. intelligence community remain divided on the question.[9]

  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. ^ Klepper, David; Amiri, Farnoush; Dupuy, Beatrice (26 April 2021). "The superspreaders behind top COVID-19 conspiracy theories". AP News.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ "Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says". WSJ. 26 February 2023.
  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.