Dr. Julio Montaner honoured for leadership and success fighting HIV/AIDS
Over the past month, Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE), has earned three prestigious awards and been feted by his health-care colleagues in B.C. for his decades of successful work fighting HIV and AIDS.
The recognitions he has received are provincial, national, and international in scope, including the Order of British Columbia, the highest honour the province of B.C. can bestow on individuals in the province.
On October 13, Providence Health Care (PHC) and St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation co-hosted a special event in honour of Dr. Montaner to celebrate his decades of leadership, life-saving contributions and global vision in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Guests including friends, colleagues, government leaders, community partners and people living with HIV/AIDS gathered in the Conway Room at Vancouver’s Shangri-La Hotel to thank Dr. Montaner for his years of service.
“I’m proud you are doing this today for Julio,” said Health Services Minister Kevin Falcon in his speech at the event. “For nearly three decades, Julio has stood at the forefront of HIV/AIDS treatment and he has impacted millions around the world in that role.”
Minister Falcon recalled his first introduction to Dr. Montaner, one of the first meetings he had as Health Services Minister.
“He was very compelling in terms of the great work that’s being done in British Columbia, and that’s why we decided to add $48 million for the Seek and Treat program to ensure that the hard-to-reach populations get the care and treatment they need for HIV/AIDS.”
Dianne Doyle, president and CEO of PHC, has seen Dr. Montaner grow from his days as a young clinician at St. Paul’s Hospital 30 years ago to his leading international role today.
“Early in the 1980s, when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was first hitting the city of Vancouver, no one really understood the disease, its transmission, or the significant impact it would have on the health of the population of British Columbia. Julio and his colleagues were early to step up to the plate to lend their expertise to the investigation of this disease and the treatment of it,” said Doyle.
Dr. Montaner expressed his gratitude and emphasized the support that he and the BC-CfE have received from their peers and the provincial government.
“I will forever cherish and be humbled by this recognition,” said Dr. Montaner. “But I could not have done this alone. Throughout my career, I have had the good fortune to work with passionate, dedicated and talented people at the BC-CfE, within the health and research community, and the provincial government who have fought against all odds to improve the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS.”
Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Montaner, with his team of researchers at the BC-CfE played a key role in pioneering highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), which has been adopted as the gold standard treatment for HIV around the world. And recently, Dr. Montaner’s lifesaving concept of “treatment as prevention” was cited by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) as the basis for their radical new approach to HIV treatment, dubbed “Treatment 2.0.”
In a tribute video shown at the congratulatory event, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of HIV, said: “Julio not only have you achieved excellent and pioneering work in the field of HIV treatment and prevention, but your research has always been guided by a high sense of solidarity and social justice for the benefit of all. As an engaged scientist, you truly are an example for all generations of researchers.”
In further recognition of his work, Dr. Montaner received the Order of British Columbia in a ceremony held in the ballroom of Government House in Victoria on October 21. Dignitaries representing the public sector, industry, academia, First Nations, sport, philanthropy and science attended the event.
In addition, Dr. Montaner was recently named recipient of the 2010 “Albert Einstein” World Award of Science by the World Cultural Council, an international organization based in Mexico. Dr. Montaner was chosen for this honour for his relentless advancements in the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS since the early 1980s and for providing global leadership in establishing new strategies to defeat the epidemic.
And, in November this year, Montaner received the 2010 Prix Galien Canada award, which is the most prestigious award, referred to as the “Nobel Prize” in the field of Canadian pharmaceutical research and innovation.