Nobel Prize Winner Speaks at Institut Pasteur Korea
- IP-Korea holds the international symposium on Saturday, May 23, 2009
- Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine 2008 is invited to keynote speaking on HIV Infection

May 19, 2009, Seoul, S. Korea ? Institut Pasteur Korea (CEO: Ulf Nehrbass, www.ip-korea.org), a global Translational Research Institute holds the international symposium entitled of ‘Imaging the Future: Accelerating Drug Discovery’ for Korean researchers and students at IPK auditorium located in Pangyo Techno-Valley on Saturday, May 23, 2009.

In particular, Pr. Francosie Barre-Sinoussi, the Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine 2008 is invited for the special lecture under the theme of “News and Views on HIV Infection in the 21st Century: Lessons from the Past 25 years”.

Nobel Prize in 2008 was co-awarded to Dr, Francosie Barre-Sinoussi and Dr. Montagnier for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency (AIDS) virus in 1983 at the Institut Pasteur. She is the first woman prize-winner among 10 Nobel Prize winners from the Institut Pasteur.

In addition, at the event new IPK’s drug discovery process technologies as well as collaborative platform will be introduced, especially focusing on screening and image mining skills. (Inquiry: 031-8018-8050, www.ip-korea.org )

Institut Pasteur Korea is a non-profit organization based in South Korea. It was founded in April, 2004 with the strategic focus of enabling technologies and therapeutic development in disease models pertaining to public health. For additional information please visit http://www.ip-korea.org.

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[Attachment #1] Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Nobel Prize Winner in 2008
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi is Emeritus Professor at the Institut Pasteur and Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS. She heads the Retroviral Infection Control Unit of the Institut Pasteur, and she is also President of the Scientific Committee of the National Agency for AIDS and Viral Hepatitis Research (ANRS) and head of the ANRS site in South East Asia. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi has established numerous collaborations with countries deeply affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, in particular through the Institut Pasteur International Network. She has published 216 articles in international scientific journals, has presented more than 250 papers at international conferences and has 17 patents. Her team of around 20 scientists is currently working on how the virus is transmitted from mother to child, on innate mechanisms that control HIV infection and on HIV-related simian viruses that infect monkeys. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi has been awarded many prizes (including the Sovac Prize, the Korber Foundation Prize for the promotion of European Science, the French Academy of Science Prize, the King Faisal International Prize and the International AIDS Society Prize).

[Attachment #2] The discovery of HIV-1 at the Institut Pasteur
The adventure of isolating an unknown virus that was to become responsible for a fearful pandemic, started at the Institut Pasteur in December 1982. The Viral Oncology Unit of the Institut Pasteur, which specialized in studying relationships between retrovirus and cancers, started its work on HIV when it was asked for assistance by clinicians from the AP-HP. Luc Montagnier led the team and the major contribution to studying the new virus was made by Francoise Barre-Sinoussi. In January 1983, the team started work on the first lymph node biopsy of a patient suffering from “general lymphadenopathy”, the “pre AIDS” stage in the disease (before the appearance of a deep immunodeficiency). In May 1983, the Institut Pasteur team published the first description of the HIV, then named “Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus” or LAV, in the journal Science. At the same time, a team of American scientists led by Robert Gallo was also trying to identify the virus. A few months after the French discovery, a group of molecular biologists from the Institut Pasteur determined the genome sequence of HIV, permitting the first diagnostic tests to be developed. Later, detailed investigation of the viral replication cycle led to the development of many new classes of antiviral drugs that were to be used to treat AIDS patients.

See the detailed Korean Version of Press Release Attached