Dr. Luc Montagnier wrote his book over his journey of becoming a virologist and the amazing information he discovered for the world. He explains his tragic accident in his childhood, as well as the difficulties he went through to do the amazing research and lab work he did, that lead up to his discoveries.
Montagnier became an assistant at Cellular Biology, and then he also worked at the Pasteur Institute located in Paris, where which he did a lot of work in. Montagnier worked with a lot of great people throughout the years. One which was somewhat of his competition was, Robert Gallo. They both were working on what we know now called Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Robert Gallo however called HIV by the name of HTLV-III because he considered it as a type of HTLV (human T-cells leukemia virus). Other important people that were in Montagniers team was, Willy Rozenbaum and Jacques…show more content… His first discovery which earned him a degree in natural sciences was that, “The rotation of chlorophyll patched depended on the movements of the cytoplasm” (Montagnier 18). Montagniers second major discover was that, “during the reproduction of a virus inside a cell, the RNA also takes the form of a double helix, very similar to the DNA double helix...” (Montaginier 25) He was very proud of what he had discovered since it took him three years. Another major discovery, which is what he is known for, was the discovery of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), at the time called LAV (lymphadenopathy associated virus). When he discovered HIV he also knew that HIV and AIDS were pretty much the same thing; however, Montagnier knew that they both had a few differences. As Montagnier explained the differences between the two, “except perhaps for the degree of virulence” (Montaginier 57). This basically means, (as we all know today) that AIDS is a syndrome followed by HIV in certain cases; therefore, if HIV is not treated in time in becomes
