Simon Wain-Hobson (born 25 May 1953) is a British/French

microbiologist A microbiologist (from Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and some types of par ...

, professor of molecular retrovirology at the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (, ) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Th ...

in Paris, director of the French National HPV Reference Laboratory, and board chairman of the Foundation for Vaccine Research in Washington, D.C.

Career

Wain-Hobson obtained a PhD in biochemistry from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

in 1977, served as a post-doctoral fellow at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

from 1977 to 1980, and thereafter moved to the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Wain-Hobson and his research group at the Pasteur Institute were the first to publish the

sequence In mathematics, a sequence is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetitions are allowed and order matters. Like a set, it contains members (also called ''elements'', or ''terms''). The number of elements (possibly infinite) is cal ...

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the im ...

, which was also the first full sequence of a primate

lentivirus ''Lentivirus'' is a genus of retroviruses that cause chronic and deadly diseases characterized by long incubation periods, in humans and other mammalian species. The genus includes the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. Lent ...

. Wain-Hobson is holder of licensed patents on HIV genomes and diagnostics. Wain-Hobson's most recent work involves the role of

APOBEC3 APOBEC3G (apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme, catalytic subunit 3G) is a human enzyme encoded by the ''APOBEC3G'' gene that belongs to the APOBEC superfamily of proteins. This family of proteins has been suggested to play an important role in ...

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

and other human diseases. Wain-Hobson is a co-founder of Invectys Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of immunotherapy approaches to the treatment of cancer. Wain-Hobson won the André Lwoff prize in 1996 and Athena prize from the French Academy of Sciences in 2007 and is Officier de la

Légion d’Honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

. Wain-Hobson was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in the

2022 New Year Honours The 2022 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebratio ...

for services to virology. In 1999, Wain-Hobson engaged with a controversial hypothesis that the oral polio vaccine in Africa may have been the source of HIV in humans, and suggested it had some plausibility. By 2001, Wain-Hobson had co-authored a study examining a sample of the vaccine, which contradicted the hypothesis, and wrote "Those of us who were formerly willing to give some credence to the OPV hypothesis will now consider that the matter has been laid to rest".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wain-Hobson, Simon British virologists French virologists Officers of the Legion of Honour Alumni of the University of Oxford 1953 births Living people Officers of the Order of the British Empire British emigrants to France Alumni of Merton College, Oxford