She already felt that she was living in an “hyperactive” retirement. At 72, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi did not hesitate, however, when Emmanuel Macron offered to take over the chairmanship of the brand new Research and Expert Analysis Committee (Care). A new body that brings together, since March 24, 12 researchers and doctors to advise the government on treatments and tests against the coronavirus.
So here is this virologist at the Institut Pasteur engaged in a mission as she has led so many in her life. She who had the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2008 with professor Luc Montagnier for the discovery of the AIDS virus in 1983, and who chairs the association Sidaction since 2017. "She has always given without counting to science", underlined Élisabeth Menu, research director at Inserm, who has worked with her for a long time.
The one that the young researchers of her team at the Pasteur Institute affectionately nicknamed "Nobel granny" is therefore fighting again, as she has done for years in her fight against HIV. "Health is the number one priority," she likes to say. Because without health, there is no life. "
"At my age, experience can be useful to others"
Above all, she is delighted to be able, despite her retirement, to be useful to her country again. In 2015, she told the AIDS information magazine Transversal that she had refused proposals from the United States or Australia to continue her activity. She said she preferred to stay in France "because even if I have this research aspect without borders, I remain attached to my country, I have my life there, friends, relationships ... I don't want to cut myself off from everything around me in the last period of my life. When you get to a certain age, like me, our experience can help others. It is therefore necessary to make them benefit. "
A great trajectory for the one who, born in Paris (19th century), developed her passion for science by observing animals and insects during long days of vacation in Auvergne. "I think it was from these observations of nature that this passion for the living was born," she said during interviews with France Culture.
Confronted with the challenge of Covid-19, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi does not hide her concern "faced with this epidemic which reminds me in many ways of many painful things from the beginning of the HIV / AIDS epidemic", as she indicated to World, March 24. In this interview, she directly attacks the "drifts" that she noticed on the subject.
"Do not give false hope"
Starting with the excitement around the work of the infectious disease specialist Didier Raoult and his treatment with hydroxychloroquine. "Let's not give false hopes," she says, pointing to "a treatment whose effectiveness has not been rigorously proven". Before adding, drawing on her experience with HIV: “Let’s be very careful with the announcement effects”.
One thing is certain, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi will do everything to obtain progress in her mission. Faced with the difficulty for a researcher to succeed in his career, in 2018, she also indicated on France Culture: “The obstacle course, I am ready to do it again. The game is worth the candle. What could be more satisfying at the end of your career to see that we have contributed somewhere to improve the lives of people who, in addition, are grateful to us? "
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She always has one of the most significant memories of her life in her mind: that day in 1984 when a patient in intensive care in San Francisco asked to speak to her. "Thank you," she read on the lips of the dying man. " But why ? She asked him. " For the others ".
