Françoise Barré-Sinoussi is the director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit, at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, and was the first author of the 1983 paper that reported the discovery of a retrovirus later named HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).

She shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for that work and is the current president of the International AIDS Society. She is also the international chair of AIDS2014, the 20th International AIDS Conference being held in Melbourne July 20-25.

Professor of public health at the University of Melbourne, Rob Moodie, spoke to Professor Barré-Sinoussi about her work as a researcher and an advocate on the conference’s opening day.