researcher Luc Montagnier died at the age of 89

He was one of the most famous scientists of his generation. Tuesday February 8, Luc Montagnier, French biologist and virologist died at the age of 89. On May 20, 1983, at the Institut Pasteur, his team announced the discovery of the AIDS virus, a world first. By identifying the virus, they had damned the pawn to American researchers. A rivalry that Luc Montagnier then evoked almost with relish. “I think we had an open mind. We had no a priori, while the American team wanted at all costs to find a virus similar to the one they had already found“he declared in 1994, in the program Bouillon de Culture.

Thanks to this discovery, he received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008, along with his colleague Françoise Barré-Sinoussi. The researcher had also chained the positions taken, which had surprised, then annoyed his peers. First there was the papaya extract prescribed to the Pope against Parkinson’s disease. He then relayed anti-vaccine theses, such as the supposed link between vaccination and sudden infant death syndrome. He had finally reiterated this vaccine mistrust during the Covid-19 crisis.