Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine winner, has died in France. He passed away at the age of 89.
This is reported Le Monde.
Montagnier died on February 8 at Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Luc Montagnier was born on August 18, 1932. In 1955, he was appointed assistant at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Paris, after which he focused his research on animal viruses, especially those whose genetic heritage consists of RNA, and on the connection that may exist between these viruses and cancer processes.
In 1983, he discovered HIV with his colleagues Jean-Claude Sherman and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi. In 2008 Professor Montagnier and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on HIV.