In honor of Women History Month let’s celebrate Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi.

Photo Credit: TheGuardian.com
Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is a virologist, professor, and Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit, Virology Department at Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. Dr. Barré-Sinoussi was born on July 30, 1947 in Paris, France. She was the only child and had a passion for science at an early age. When she entered undergraduate she decided to pursue a natural science degree because she wanted to make discoveries.
Shortly after she began to work in the laboratory with Jean-Claude Chermann at the Pasteur Institute studying retroviruses and cancer in mice and completed her Ph.D. there. In 1975 she was offered a fully funded research position supervised by Montagnier. Since I am interested vaccine and infectious disease research I wanted to showcase Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi’s cutting-edge contributions to science in the field of disease transmission, immunity, and virology.
In 2008 two of the greatest discoveries were honored. 2008 was the year the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared with three scientists. Harald zur Hausen has 1/2 of the Prize share “for his discovery of human papilloma virus causing cervical cancer”, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi has 1/4 of the Prize share and Luc Montagnier has 1/4 of the Prize share “for their discovery of human immunodeficiency5 virus”. As stated on Nobelprize.org website,”It was identified in lymphocytes from patients with enlarged lymph nodes in early stages of acquired immunodeficiency, and in the blood from patients with late stage disease” To learn more about the discovery check out the nobelprize.org.
Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi represents one of the 44 total women that have been awarded the Nobel Prize (1901-2013) and one of the 16 total women that have been awarded the Nobel Prize in the Sciences. She believes that receiving the Nobel Prize is also a prize for everyone in the community. (more…)
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