Science and struggle go together; one who has the persistence to go through tough and tortuous paths to success is usually is recognized by the world. Here, I am going to shed some light in the inspiring story of struggle of a French virologist, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who discovered the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV). She was jointly awarded with Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with two others for her remarkable work on Retrovirus, the cause of Acquired Immuno-deficiency Disease (AIDS) in the year 2008. Françoise achieved many professional milestones and was serving as a group leader of Regulation of Retroviral Infection Research Group in Pasteur Institute, Paris at the time of her retirement in 2017.
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi was born on 30th July, 1947 in Paris. At school, she loved science than the other subjects and this was reflected in her grades being always good in science than the language. As a young student, she was very close to the nature, she enjoyed looking at forest, blooming flowers, insects, and was curious about different natural phenomena. After completion of high school in the year 1966, she had to choose between Medicine and Biological Sciences. As studying Medicine was longer and more expensive, due to her humble family background, she decided to pursue Biological Sciences as her career. So, Françoise registered for a Bachelor in Natural Sciences at Faculty of Sciences in University of Paris. During the end of her degree, she could realise that she is more interested in the practical aspect than the theory and enjoyed being in the lab for long time. This motivated her for a career in research and she felt that a lab internship as a volunteer would be helpful for future. So, she started looking for labs that would accept her as an intern for a few months, but she had hard time finding a lab for this. In her biography, she had mentioned that she tried fruitlessly for months for the internship. After many rejections, finally she managed to get it with the help of a friend and she joined as a volunteer in the laboratory of Jean-Claude Chermann at the Pasteur Institute at Marne-la-Coquette. This was a major turning point in the scientific career of Françoise. During her volunteering period, the lab was working on the relationship of retro-virus and cancer in mice, giving her a chance to work on retro-virus. Subsequently, she was offered a PhD position in the same lab. Françoise worked on inhibition of retro-viral reverse transcriptase by synthetic molecules and completed her PhD in the year 1974. Thereafter, she was associated with different research institutes in different countries working on retro-viruses. Françoise and her group made number of remarkable contributions towards research in HIV pathogenesis and treatment. It was her group who first identified the viral aetiology of AIDS in 1983 and for this she was awarded with the Nobel Prize in the year 2008.
Source:
Nobelprize.org
Compiled by
Dr. Luit M Barkalita Assistant Professor, Department of Animal Biotechnology, College of Veterinary Science, AAU, Khanapara, Guwahati-22, Assam, India. E-mail: luit@vetbifg.ac.in
