Dr. Robert C. Gallo and Dr. Luc Montagnier

Since 1996, Dr. Robert C. Gallo has been Director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Previously (for 30 years) he was at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. Dr. Gallo’s career long interest has followed one theme: the study of the basic biology of human blood cells, their normal and abnormal growth, and the causes of abnormal growth whether excessive, e.g., leukemias or insufficient, e.g., immune deficiencies.
Dr. Gallo and his co-workers opened and pioneered the field of human retrovirology when in 1980 they discovered the first human retrovirus (HTLV-1) and with others showed it was a cause of a particular form of human leukemia. (This was the first, and to date, the only known human leukemia virus and one of the few known viruses shown to cause a human cancer). A year later he and his group discovered the second known human retrovirus (HTLV-2). Dr. Gallo and his colleagues also independently discovered HIV (the 3rd known human retrovirus), and provided the first results to show that HIV was the cause of AIDS. They also developed the life saving HIV blood test (1983-1984).

The discoveries of all human retroviruses, including HIV, were to a great extent dependent on being able to grow human T-cells (lymphocytes) in the laboratory, and this was achieved by the use of a growth factor called Interleukin-2 or IL-2. Dr. Gallo and his co-workers discovered Interleukin-2 in 1976, thus setting the stage for all groups to culture human T-cells. Today IL-2 is used not only in laboratory experiments, but also in some therapies for cancer and AIDS.

In 1995 he and his colleagues discovered the first natural (endogenous) inhibitors of HIV, namely some of the beta chemokines. This discovery helped in the later discovery of the HIV co-receptor, CCR5, and opened up entire new approaches to treatment of HIV disease.

Also, Dr. Gallo, along with his colleague, D. Ablashi, discovered in 1986 the first new human herpes in more than twenty-five years, Human Herpes Virus-6 (HHV-6). This is now known to cause Roseola in infants and is a candidate for involvement in several other diseases.


Luc MONTAGNIER was born in 1932 in Chabris (France). After his medical and scientific studies in Paris, he became a fully appointed researcher in 1960 at the 'Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique'.


He then spent three and half years in England in two laboratories of the Medical Research Council, first in Carshalton and then in Glasgow. In 1963, Luc Montagnier discovered with F.K. Sanders the first double-stranded RNA induced in the replication of a single-stranded RNA virus, demonstrating for the first time that RNA replicates as DNA via base pairing. In 1964, in Glasgow, with I. Mac Pherson, he discovered a new property of cancer cells, the growth in agar, which is now a routine technique in laboratories working on cell transformation and oncogenes.


After his return to France, he ran a laboratory at the Institut Curie, Orsay, and then moved in 1972 to the Pasteur Institute to set up a new laboratory, the Viral Oncology Unit, under the Directorship of Jacques Monod. He worked there on oncogenic viruses and interferon biochemistry. With E. and J. de Maeyer, he made the first characterization of interferon messenger RNA by its translation into heterologous cells, opening the way for cloning the interferon genes.


In 1983, with J.C. Chermann and F. Barre-Sinoussi, he discovered the third human retrovirus (HIV-1) and contributed to show its etiologic role in AIDS in collaboration with his colleagues from Hospitals and Universities in Paris.


In 1985, his team isolated the second human AIDS virus (HIV-2) from West African patients.

Between 1986 and 2000, he has been supervising in his Research Unit the work of a group of distinguished collaborators on the complex mechanisms of AIDS pathogenesis. In 1991, his laboratory was the first to describe the high propensity of T4 and T8 lymphocytes from HIV individuals to die in short term culture by apoptosis and to emphasize the role of oxidative stress in this phenomenon.


More recently, he has been involved in the search for infectious cofactors which could help sexual transmission of HIV and accelerate disease progression for HIV. Small microbes, such as mycoplasma, appear to be the best candidates for these AIDS aggravating factors.


Luc MONTAGNIER was rewarded the Prizes Rosen (1971), Gallien (1985), Korber (1986), Jeantet (1986), the Lasker Prize in Medicine (1986), the Gairdner Prize (1987), Santé Prize (1987), Japan Prize (1988), King Faisal Prize (1993), Amsterdam Foundation Prize (1994), Warren Alpert Prize (1998), Prince of Asturias Award (2000) and the Nobel Prize in Medicine (2008). He is Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mérite (1986) and Grand Officier of the Legion of Honour (2009).


In 1993, Luc Montagnier created with Federico Mayor, former Director General of UNESCO, the World Foundation AIDS Research and Prevention of which he is the President. The Foundation has created the “Centre Intégré de Recherches Biocliniques d’Abidjan (CIRBA) in 1996 and the “Centre International de reference et de recherche “Chantal Biya”, on prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS in Cameroun. It is envisaged to implement such centre in Burkina Faso.

Since 2005, Luc Montagnier is President-CEO and Founder of Nanectis Biotechnologies SA, Paris and New York.

In 2008, he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, for his discovery of HIV, together with Françoise Barre-Sinoussi.