Françoise Barré-Sinoussi

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (born 30 July 1947 in Paris) is a famous French immunologist and virologist. She shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Luc Montagnier for their co-discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS, and with Harald zur Hausen, who discovered the viral cause of cervical cancer that led to the development.

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Quotes

I think also the interaction between us and the clinician were very fruitful, because the fact that we chose for the first sample a lymph node biopsy and not taking a patient with AIDS was probably critical because after we learned that lymph nodes are full of infected cells. We decided also not to look after several weeks but to look into the culture regularly, and I think that was also a critical point. Plus the fact that we benefited, as Professor Montagnier said, of the technologies that were available in the lab, plus also the technology and reagents that had been developed at the same time, I am thinking particular about interleukin 2, what was called at that time TGF-β, allowing the T lymphocytes to grow in culture.
- Transcript from an interview with the 2008 medicine laureates. nobelprize.org. (interview by Adam Smith)

Je pense qu’à un moment donné il faut laisser la place à la jeune génération de chercheurs. Cela fait partie de la vie de permettre aux chercheurs avec lesquels on a travaillé depuis des années de prendre leur indépendance totale. J’ai toujours essayé, en tout cas pour les chercheurs qui devenaient des seniors, de leur donner cette indépendance.
(translation) I think that at some point, we have to make way for the younger generation of researchers. It's part of life to allow researchers we've worked with for years to become completely independent. I've always tried, at least for researchers who were gaining seniority, to give them that independence.
- Françoise Barré-Sinoussi: « La recherche, c’est se donner pour les autres ». sidaction.org (6 January 2017). (interview by Laure Adler)

Un chercheur doit en permanence se remettre en question, quel que soit son âge. On ne détient jamais la vérité entière. Il faut faire ce métier non pas pour soi-même, mais pour essayer de contribuer pour les autres.
(translation) Researchers, no matter how old, must constantly question themselves. We never possess the whole truth. This profession should not be pursued for oneself, but to try to contribute to others.
- Françoise Barré-Sinoussi: « La recherche, c’est se donner pour les autres ». sidaction.org (6 January 2017). (interview by Laure Adler)

D’ailleurs, le multi-institutionnel est pour moi très important, tout comme le multidisciplinaire ou le transversal entre la recherche fondamentale et la recherche clinique.
(translation) Might I add, multi-institutional collaboration is very important to me, as is multidisciplinary collaboration or the boundary-crossing approach between basic research and clinical research.
- Françoise Barré-Sinoussi: « La recherche, c’est se donner pour les autres ». sidaction.org (6 January 2017). (interview by Laure Adler)

For me the biggest risk would be to see a reemerging HIV/AIDS epidemic. That is really what I am extremely worried about. In some countries, in particular right now in Africa, the virus is, in newly infected people, almost already resistant to the treatment.
So, my worry is to see a situation which is quite similar to tuberculosis – to see a new epidemic where the virus is resistant to treatment. And we know that this risk is due to insufficient access to the tools that scientists have developed or of improper use of those tools and this is really a terrible risk for the future.
- HIV – and beyond: Talking to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi. nobelprize.org (November 2019). (interview by Marcus Rose)