The CIHR-IPPH Trailblazer Award in Population and Public Health Research is a career achievement award that recognizes exceptional contributions in the area of population and public health research.
The CIHR-IPPH Trailblazer Award is designed to recognize the exemplary efforts and activities of exceptional Canadian researchers at different career stages who have created a highly influential body of work that has had a substantial impact on the field of population and public health research. The award also recognizes the leadership, mentorship, and innovative contributions of the recipients.
Senior Career Researcher: Julio Montaner
Dr. Julio Montaner is a Killam Professor of Medicine, at the University of British Columbia, the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS’ Executive Director and Physician-in-Chief, and the Head of HIV/AIDS, at St. Paul’s Hospital, Providence Health Care.
Julio is widely recognized as one of the fathers of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), which has proven to be exquisitely effective to prevent AIDS and premature death. For his work in this area, The Lancet named him the “King of HAART”. In 2006, he went on to pioneer the notion that HAART also stops HIV transmission. He coined the term “Treatment as Prevention” (TasP), to convey the triple benefit of HAART to stop; 1) progression to AIDS, 2) AIDS deaths, and 3) HIV transmission. In 2015, his TasP-inspired 90-90-90 by 2020 Target was formally endorsed by the UN in 2015, and subsequently his 95-95-95 by 2025 Target [ PDF (641 KB) – external link ] was endorsed by the UN in 2021 as the global strategy to “End AIDS as a Pandemic”. Currently, Julio has expanded his efforts to adapt TasP to optimize and accelerate the control of other impactful contagious diseases (including infectious diseases [i.e.: HCV], as well as socially contagious diseases [i.e.: type II Diabetes, COPD, opioid use]), with the ultimate goal to enhance Health Care Sustainability.