[오늘의 인물] Luca Montagnier
Today (the 1st) is ‘World AIDS Day’. Many people are afraid of AIDS.
The development of antiviral drugs targeting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes AIDS, has become a hope for patients. Being diagnosed with AIDS in the 1980s was a “death sentence”, but today it has become a manageable chronic disease.
Drug development was made possible by the discovery of HIV. Dr. Luc Montagnier, head of viral oncology at the Institut Pasteur in France, discovered HIV. In 1983, a new virus was identified by culturing the lymph node tissue of an AIDS patient, which was HIV.
The following year, a debate arose about the “first discoverer”. The lymph node tissue used in the study by Dr. Montagnier was also given to Robert Gallo, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health. He too has discovered a new virus. After much debate, Dr. Montagnier was recognized as the first discoverer and received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Dr. Montagnier, who died at the age of 89 in February of this year, has taken a sad step. He has developed a conspiracy theory that the Corona 19 virus was created artificially in a laboratory. In addition, he was active as an opponent of the Corona 19 vaccine. He was criticized by the medical and scientific world for claiming that getting a Corona 19 booster would infect HIV.
Dr. Montagnier left behind the goal of accelerating the emergence of an AIDS treatment, but in the crown city he caused confusion with scientifically unsubstantiated claims and distanced himself from the mainstream scientific community. He was remembered as a scholar who received mixed reviews as “a deserter who has left outstanding results”.
