Montagnier, Luc Antoine, 1932–, French virologist, M.D. Sorbonne, 1960. Montagnier was a researcher at the Medical Research Council at Carshalton, London (1960–63), the Institute of Virology in Glasgow, Scotland (1963–65), and the Curie Institute in Orsay, France (1965–72). He joined the viral oncology unit of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1972 and is now professor emeritus there. He is also director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, Paris, which he cofounded in 1993. Montagnier shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francoise Barré-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen for discovering viruses that cause severe human diseases. Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi are credited with the 1983 discovery that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes AIDS. Montagnier continues to work on treatments for AIDS and on the development of an AIDS vaccine.
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