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 The three discoverers in the office of Professor Chermann at Institut Pasteur in 1983 The notes on blackboard has been written by Chermann |
Press Contact : Bernard Le Grelle tel. +33 6 62 88 93 26 bernard.legrelle@wanadoo.fr Henri Capdeville tel. +33 6 80 21 42 98 h.capdeville@wanadoo.fr |
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On 6 October, the Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for the discovery of the AIDS virus a quarter of a century ago, but the main co-discoverer, Professor Jean-Claude Chermann, was forgotten. This decision has given rise to lively criticism in the scientific community in France and elsewhere. Indeed, in January 1983 Professor Jean-Claude Chermann, an internationally famous retrovirologist and head of the retrovirus laboratory at Institut Pasteur, was the first to isolate the AIDS virus with his assistant, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, in a laboratory that at the time was part of the viral oncology unit headed by Professor Luc Montagnier. In order to set the record straight and to have Jean-Claude Chermann associated with this Nobel Prize as well, a support committee was created on 7 October. Today, there are some 1000 members, most of whom are doctors, researchers and journalists. The Support Committee for the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2008 to Jean-Claude Chermann has had several telephone conferences with Professor Hans Jörnvall, Secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine and with the Chair of the Nobel Committee, Professor Bertil Fredholm to correct this unfortunate error. To no avail. Professor Peter Biberfeld of the Karolinska Institute (where the Nobel Assembly for medicine originated) in Stockholm. Professor Biberfeld, MD, director of the immunopathology laboratory and AIDS specialist, who has not been consulted at the time of the award of the prize said. In an interview to the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, with regard to Professor Gallo: "this is an enormous mistake that will haunt Karolinska Institute for a long time. It seems that the Nobel Assembly did not try to find out what really happened in AIDS research." More than in any other discipline, Science must be constructed on undeniable facts and acknowledgements. The history of research on AIDS pinpoints three French researchers: Jean-Claude Chermann, the main discoverer who directed the laboratory where the discovery was made, his assistant Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, and finally Luc Montagnier, head of the oncology unit that included this laboratory administratively. This affirmation is based on objective facts, testimony of scientists present at the time and on a counter-investigation done by independent journalists that will soon be published in a well-known French weekly and an American daily paper. The error has been corrected at the highest level of the French State. The Presidency of the Republic, in a Press Release published on 28 Ocrober 2008 wrote about the interview granted by the President of the Republic to Professor Chermann "This discussion will be an opportunity for the Head of State to express the country’s gratitude to Dr. CHERMANN who was one of the co-discoverers of the AIDS virus. The President of the Republic has the pleasure of acknowledging the contribution of Dr. CHERMANN to a discovery that gained France its first Nobel Prize in medicine in 28 years" Prime Minsiter François Fillon on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the Institut Pasteur declared on 14 November : "I want to repeat to them how proud we are of this well-deserved award, with which I very much want to associate strongly Jean-Claude Chermann, who directed the laboratory where the discovery of the AIDS virus took place 25 years ago”. 1) Professor Chermann is the author and the main signatory of the founding article of the discovery of the AIDS virus in the journal Science of 20 May 1983. The first two names are Barre-Sinoussi and Chermann, while Montagnier comes in the twelfth and last position. In a scientific article, this last place is usually for the head of the laboratory. The first two or three places are for the authors who actually did the work described in the article. 2) Professor Chermann is mentioned in all the patents as a co-discoverer. - In patent # EP0138667 of 24 April 1985 (Method for the Diagnosis of Lymphadenopathy and Acquired Immune Depression Syndrome) the author order is (1) L. Montagnier, (2) J.-C. Chermann, (3) F. Barré-Sinoussi. - In international patent # AT69650T (Verfahren zur Diagnose von Lymphadenopathie und von Erworbenemimmunddepressionssyndrom) registered by Institut Pasteur on 15 December 1991, Professor Cherman is as well in second position, as inventor. 3) Professor Chermann, with Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, is one of the signatories of the French-American agreement of 31 March 1987. When Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and President Ronald Reagan signed, on 31 March 1987, a compromise giving the discovery of the AIDS virus - and its financial impact - both to France and the United States, the signature of Jean-Claude Chermann was required to valid this treaty. Against his will, because he did not accept to offer half of the discovery to the U.S., he was forced to fix his signature by the director of the Institut Pasteur. For this reason, he resigned from that institute. 4) In 1993 the "King Faisal International Prize for Medicine" was awarded to the three co-discoverers. "The 1993 King Faisal International Prize for Medicine has been awarded for research on Acquired Immunodeficiency Diseases. One research team has been outstanding in its contributions to the understanding of this fundamental public health problem. The Prize has therefore been awarded jointly to: Professor Luc Montagnier, Dr. Jean-Claude Chermann and Dr.Françoise Barré-Sinoussi." (News Release : King Faisal International Prize) 5) Professor Chermann continues to receive copyright for the invention, paid by Institut Pasteur. 1) Professor Robert Gallo : "There is no doubt that in the summer, and certainly by the fall of 1983, Chermann had discovered the cytopathological effect of the virus and I hadn’t..." (1985, Interview in Science n°230 page 520) 2) Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi : "The name of the head of the laboratory is often put forward. But it is true that at the beginning, we agreed that every time we talked about our work, it would be in the names of all three of us. (Interview of 7 October 2008 in the journal Science) "At the time, I was working with Professor Chermann, he was the head of my laboratory... he was the one who trained me in research at the outset... he supported me for my thesis... he was the one who sent me abroad for a post doc... I owe him a great deal... How can you expect me to understand why he was not given the award?" (Television interview on France-3 of 8 October) 3) Professor François Jacob, winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine (1965), member of the Académie française, Professor at the Collège de France and Chairman of the Board of Institut Pasteur (1982-1988) : "And a century after the rabies vaccination, it was at the Institut Pasteur again that Montagnier, Barré-Sinoussi and Chermann isolated and identified the HIV virus responsible for one of the greatest scourges of our times." 4) Dr. Rosette Lidereau, Director of Research at INSERM, (INSERM 735 Unit) : "I worked in the laboratory led by Jean-Claude Chermann at the Institut Pasteur from 1993... I remember the four-handed duet when Françoise and Jean-Claude manipulated hundreds of petri dishes to characterize the virus in a room used for this cell culture activity. It was really the job of a perfect two-person team using various approaches to cellular biology put in place previously in the laboratory by Jean-Claude. ...who was intimately involved with this adventure, I don’t understand how it is possible to separate the French researchers behind the discovery for the award of the prize." 5) Professor Christian-Jacques LARSEN Former DR1 CNRS, co-responsible for U301 Inserm St Louis Hospital, Paris) National scientific attaché to the Ligue contre le cancer : "I was in fairly close contact with Jean-Claude Chermann in the 70s and the 80s. I am of course disgusted with the treatment given to him and I would like to join the support committee, not to ask for justice, but to inform the general public and our young colleagues of the real conditions in which the discovery of HIV was made and the real role played by Jean-Claude in this effort." 6) Dr. Paul Olivier HANTZBERG, former member of the National Aids Council : "Not giving J.C Chermann the first place in the discovery of the HIV virus, and the Nobel Prize in Medicine at the same time as his department director Luc Montagnier and his assistant at the time Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, forever undermines the credibility of the award of the Nobel Prize to scientists." 7) Professor Jean-Michel KORNPROBST : "The eviction of Jean-Claude Chermann from the Nobel Prize awarded for the discovery of the AIDS virus is totally incomprehensible to me and I am convinced that a large number of us share that same opinion." 8) Professor Michel ARSAC, Member of the National Academy of Medicine : "He deserves the Nobel Prize for his discovery of HIV in the same capacity as those who took part in this historic research in the same team." |