Françoise Barré-Sinoussi facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
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Barré-Sinoussi in 2008
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| Born | 30 July 1947 Paris, France
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| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Known for | Co-discoverer of HIV |
| Awards | 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Virology |
| Institutions | Pasteur Institute |
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (born 30 July 1947) is a French virologist. She is a professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Barré-Sinoussi did important work to find the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This virus is the cause of AIDS. In 2008, she won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She shared it with her old teacher, Luc Montagnier. They won for finding HIV. She stopped her active research in 2015 and fully retired in 2017.
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Early Life and Science Dreams
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi loved science from a very young age. When she was a child, she spent hours watching insects and animals. She would compare how they behaved. She wanted to know why some animals ran faster than others.
Soon, she realized she was very good at science. She was better at science than at her other school subjects. She told her parents she wanted to go to university. She wanted to study science or become a researcher. Barré-Sinoussi first thought about becoming a doctor. But she believed studying medicine was too expensive and took too long.
After two years at university, she looked for a part-time job in a lab. She wanted to make sure she had chosen the right career. After almost a year of looking, the Pasteur Institute finally accepted her. Her part-time work there quickly became full-time. She only went to university for exams. She had to use her friends' notes because she was not in class often. But she actually got better grades than before. She finally had a strong reason to study. She knew a career in science was what she wanted.
Discovering HIV
Barré-Sinoussi joined the Pasteur Institute in Paris in the early 1970s. She earned her PhD in 1974. Then she worked for a short time at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. After that, she came back to the Pasteur Institute. She worked in Luc Montagnier's team.
In the early 1980s, a new disease called AIDS appeared. No one knew what caused it. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi worked with Luc Montagnier, Jean-Claude Chermann, and others. They took a sample from a swollen lymph node of a patient. This patient was at risk for AIDS. From this sample, they found and grew a retrovirus. This virus was later named HIV-1. It was the cause of the AIDS outbreak.
This discovery was very important. It helped create tests to find the virus. These tests helped stop the virus from spreading. It also helped guide how to treat people with AIDS. This discovery led to many big steps in understanding HIV/AIDS. It saved countless lives.
Barré-Sinoussi started her own lab at the Pasteur Institute in 1988. She has studied how the body's immune system fights viruses. She also looked at how the body's natural defenses control HIV/AIDS. Her work includes studying how HIV passes from mother to child. She also studies people who have HIV but can control the virus without medicine. These people are called "elite suppressors." She has written over 240 science papers. She has also been to over 250 international meetings. She has taught many young researchers.
Barré-Sinoussi has helped many science groups. She has worked with committees at the Pasteur Institute. She also worked with other AIDS groups, like the National Agency for AIDS Research in France. She has also worked around the world. She was a helper for the WHO (World Health Organization) and UNAIDS (the UN program on HIV/AIDS).
Since the 1980s, Barré-Sinoussi has worked with developing countries. She has led groups that combine different types of science. In 2016, she talked about how Jamaica was dealing with HIV. She always tries to connect basic science with patient care. Her goal is to make real improvements in preventing, treating, and caring for HIV.
Professor Barré-Sinoussi believes scientists have made good progress. New medicines called antiretroviral treatments have been developed. These medicines help people with AIDS live longer. But finding a cure will take time. It will also need continued money for research. She was a co-chair of the 21st International AIDS Society (IAS) meeting. She said that finding a cure for HIV is a very important goal. It is a top priority for future HIV research. Even though cure research is new, big steps are being made.
In July 2012, Barré-Sinoussi became the President of the International AIDS Society.
The Journey to Finding HIV
When Françoise Barré-Sinoussi started working on retroviruses, there were big projects in the United States. These projects looked at the link between cancer and retroviruses. So, she decided to study how retroviruses caused leukemia in mice.
Then, a new disease appeared (it was not yet called AIDS). A group of French doctors came to the Pasteur Institute. They asked a simple question: Is this new disease caused by a retrovirus? After talking with other scientists, including Luc Montagnier, they thought it might be a retrovirus. But it was not HTLV, which was the only known retrovirus at the time. This new virus had different features.
In the early 1980s, Barré-Sinoussi knew how to find "reverse transcriptase" activity. If this activity is present, it means the virus is a retrovirus. In December 1982, serious research began. Doctors saw that the new disease attacked immune cells. It caused a big drop in CD4 cells. But it was very hard to find the virus in patients who were very sick with AIDS.
Because it was hard to get infected cells from very sick patients, Barré-Sinoussi and her team tried something else. They used a lymph node biopsy from a patient. This patient had swollen lymph nodes all over their body. This was a common sign in the early stages of the disease.
In the second week of checking the cells from the biopsy, they found reverse transcriptase activity. It increased for a short time. Then, the activity dropped a lot as the T-lymphocytes in the sample started to die. Barré-Sinoussi and her team added new lymphocytes from a blood donor. This helped save the sample. The virus moved to the new cells. Strong reverse transcriptase activity was found again. At this point, they named the virus LAV, for Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus. Later, it was renamed HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. The year 1983 marked the start of Barré-Sinoussi's work on HIV, which continued until she retired.
Leadership and Global Work
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi stayed at the Pasteur Institute. In 1992, she became the head of the Biology of Retroviruses Unit. In 2005, this unit was renamed the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit. Today, this unit works on finding a vaccine against HIV. They also study how to protect against AIDS for new treatments.
Barré-Sinoussi has also worked with countries that have fewer resources. These include Vietnam and the Central African Republic. Her time working in developing nations with the World Health Organization really opened her eyes. It made her want to keep working with scientists in Africa and Asia. This teamwork has led to many meetings and workshops. Young scientists from countries with fewer resources can meet and learn from researchers in Paris.
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi was chosen for the International AIDS Society (IAS) Governing Council in 2006. She was the president of the IAS from 2012 to 2016. Barré-Sinoussi helped plan the 9th IAS Conference on HIV Science in July 2017. She is currently a co-chair of the IAS. She is working on a project to find a cure for HIV.
Awards and Honors
Barré-Sinoussi shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Luc Montagnier. They won for finding HIV. She also shared it with Harald zur Hausen. He found the virus that causes cervical cancer.
Besides the Nobel Prize, Barré-Sinoussi has received many other awards:
- The Sovac Prize
- The Körber European Science Prize
- The Prize of the French Academy of Sciences (Académie des sciences)
- The King Faisal International Prize
- The International AIDS Society Prize
- She was named an Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour in 2006. She was promoted to Commander in 2009. In 2013, she became a Grand Officer.
- She received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Tulane University in May 2009.
- She received an honorary Doctor of Medicine from the University of New South Wales in July 2014.
- Françoise Barré-Sinoussi received an honorary doctorate from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne on 4 October 2014.
See also
In Spanish: Françoise Barré-Sinoussi para niños
- History of RNA biology
- List of female Nobel laureates
- List of RNA biologists
- Timeline of women in science
