Julio Montaner, Professor in the Department of Medicine and Head of the UBC Division of AIDS, has been appointed a University Killam Professor, the highest honour UBC can confer on a faculty member.
Dr. Montaner, who also is the Director of the UBC/Providence Health Care BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, receives this recognition for his outstanding teaching, research and service to the community.
The University Killam Professorship recognizes exceptional teachers and researchers who are leaders in their fields, and who have received international recognition for their talents and efforts. A University Killam Professor will continue to hold the designation for as long as he or she remains a tenured faculty member at the university.
Dr. Montaner established the global standard of care for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention and he continues to provide leadership in the international HIV/AIDS research community. He has dedicated the last 30 years of his life to improving the care and treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS, helping establish the efficacy of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), and pioneering”Treatment as Prevention¨” to decrease morbidity, mortality and HIV transmission. Dr. Montaner received his MD with Honours in 1979 at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1981, he joined UBC as a postdoctoral fellow, completed a residency in Internal Medicine and Respiratory Medicine and was Chief Resident for the Department of Medicine.
In 1987, Dr. Montaner joined the Faculty as the Director of the AIDS Research Program and the Infectious Disease Clinic. He has held the Endowed Chair on AIDS Research at St. Paul’s Hospital/UBC since 1996. In 1997, he was appointed Professor of Medicine at UBC.
He held a National Health Research Scholar of Health Canada for 10 years starting in 1988. He is a founding co-Director of the Canadian HIV Trials Network. He was the President of the International AIDS Society from 2008-2010. Recently, he has been assigned the position of Global Advisor on HIV Therapeutics to the Executive Director of the United Nations AIDS Programme. Dr. Montaner has authored over 650 scientific publications on HIV/AIDS.
In the mid-1990s, as the principal investigator of the INCAS Trial, he played a key role in establishing the efficacy of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), which emerged as the new global standard of care at the 1996 Vancouver International AIDS Conference, of which he was a co-organizer.
He then focused his attention on providing HAART access for hard to reach populations, including injection drug users, and the treatment of multiple drug resistant HIV infection. He was the first to advocate for the expansion of HAART coverage to curb the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, in terms of decreasing progression to AIDS and death, as well as decreasing HIV transmission. Largely through his efforts, Treatment as Prevention¨ (TasP¨) has now been implemented with great success in B.C., and progressively embraced by UNAIDS, China, the U.S. and France, among others. In 2013 TasP¨ was fully incorporated in the World Health Organization guidelines.
Dr. Montaner has received numerous awards and distinctions for his research work, among them the Knowledge Translation Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health (CIHR), Prix Galien Award, the Albert Einstein World of Science Award, Hope is a Vaccine Award from the Global Alliance to Immunize against AIDS, and the David Barry DART Achievement Award that is given in recognition of invaluable contributions to the field of HIV drug discovery.
He is a Member of the Order of British Columbia and an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has been inducted into the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.