Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who won a Nobel Prize for co-discovering the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), has died at the age of 89.
Mr Montagnier, who once described himself as “a gambler out for the big killing”, died on Tuesday in Paris.
He was “surrounded by his children”, local newspaper France-Soir reported.
Mr Montagnier shared half of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine with fellow French scientist Francoise Barre-Sinoussi for their role in discovering the virus. The other half was awarded to German cancer researcher Harald zur Hausen.
In the years before the onset of the Aids epidemic, Montagnier had made significant discoveries concerning the nature of viruses and contributed to understanding of how viruses can alter the genetic information of host organisms.
His investigation of interferon, one of the body’s defences against viruses, also opened avenues for medical cures for viral diseases.
In the early 1980s, Mr Montagnier led a team to identify HIV while he was working at France’s Pasteur Institute, a non-profit research foundation.
Mr Montagnier and his team – including Mr Barre-Sinoussi – identified tissue samples that were taken from people, mainly gay men, who were infected with a mysterious illness.
In 1983, the team managed to draw a link between the virus and the disease after they managed to isolate HIV in the lymph node of an Aids patient.
But at the same time, American scientist Robert Gallo published similar findings in the same journal as Mr Montagnier, and later concluded that the virus caused Aids, sparking a disagreement over who should get the credit.
The dispute, which sparked years of heated debate, was finally settled by the United States and France in 1987.
Mr Montagnier was later credited as the discoverer of the virus, while Mr Gallo became known for first showing its role in causing Aids.
In the 2000s, Mr Montagnier began to receive criticism for his views and opinions, leading him to be shunned by much of the international scientific community.
Most recently, the noted scientist attracted criticism for spreading false claims about the coronavirus and autism.
In an interview with French news broadcaster CNews in 2020, he claimed that Covid was laboratory-made and that vaccines were responsible for the appearance of variants.
Earlier this year, Mr Montagnier delivered a speech at a protest against vaccine certificates in Milan, Italy.
Additional reporting by agencies
