Université de Montréal Recognizes Nicolas Chomont with Award of Excellence in HIV Research

Each year, the Canadian Association for HIV Research (CAHR) and the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) present awards of excellence to career researchers who are helping to improve the lives of people living with HIV or who are at risk of contracting the disease.

Associate professor in the Department of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Immunology, researcher at CRCHUM and co-investigator in the Canadian HIV Cure Enterprise (CanCURE), Nicolas Chomont is a well-respected leader in HIV research in Canada and abroad. His work focuses on the characterization of the mechanisms of HIV persistence in tissues and cells during antiretroviral therapy, with the aim of finding a cure for HIV.

In particular, the researcher identified the central memory and effector cells as the main cellular reservoirs of HIV during antiretroviral therapy. This discovery resulted in a landmark publication that has been cited over 1,000 times.

He has also developed tests to accurately measure the size of HIV reservoirs, which have been used as reference methods in clinical trials on HIV cure strategies.

More recently, he collaborated on a project characterizing the HIV reservoir of a patient who wished to donate their body to science after receiving medical assistance in dying. Their tissues and cells were studied at the Chomont Lab. Once again, Nicolas Chomont’s work has helped to advance research.