Julio Montaner, MD, FRCPC, FCCP Clinical Director, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Professor of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Dr. Montaner received his MD with Honors in 1979 at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1981, he joined the University of British Columbia as a post-doctoral fellow, completed a residency in Internal Medicine and Respiratory Medicine and was Chief Resident for the Department of Medicine in 1986/1987. In 1987 Dr. Montaner joined the Faculty at St. Paul's Hospital/University of British Columbia as the Director of the AIDS Research Program and the Infectious Disease Clinic. He is the Director of Clinical Activities at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and a founding co-Director of the Canadian HIV Trials Network. He held a National Health Research Scholar of Health Canada (NHRDP) for a period of 10 years starting in 1988. In 1996 he successfully competed for the Endowed Chair on AIDS at SPH/UBC. In 1997, he was appointed Professor of Medicine at UBC.
Dr. Montaner has published extensively with regard to respiratory complications of AIDS and antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection. Of note, he pioneered the use of adjunctive corticosteroids for AIDS-related Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. Later on, his work played a significant role in establishing the relationship between the development of HIV resistance to nucleoside analogues and clinical progression of the disease. For several years, Dr. Montaner has focused his efforts on the study of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), most recently focusing on simplification of antiretroviral therapy, the management of multiple drug resistant HIV and emerging toxicities of HAART. Dr. Montaner is the Editor of the BC Centre Therapeutic Guidelines and is responsible for several aspects of the Centre's Drug Distribution Program. Dr. Montaner has received numerous awards for his research work, including the $1,000,000 (CDN) Distinguished Researcher Award in HIV in 2002. Dr. Montaner is currently an elected member of the Council of the International AIDS Society.