Rate My Professor Luis Montaner

Luis J. Montaner, D.V.M., D.Phil., serves as Executive Vice President, Director of the HIV Cure and Viral Diseases Center, and Herbert Kean, M.D., Family Professor at The Wistar Institute. He also holds positions as Associate Director for Shared Resources of the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center, member of the Genome Regulation and Cell Signaling Program, and Scientific Director of the Humanized Models of Disease Facility, Flow Cytometry Facility, and Biomedical Research Support Facility. Montaner earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Kansas State University in 1989 and his Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Pathology from the University of Oxford in 1995. He joined The Wistar Institute in 1995 as an assistant professor, was promoted to professor in 2007, and appointed to the Herbert Kean, M.D., Family Endowed Chair Professorship in 2015.

Montaner's research centers on the mechanisms of disease in HIV-1 infection, cancer, and emerging viral infections including monkeypox, with a focus on strategies to enhance the immune system's natural function against viral-associated diseases and cancer progression. His laboratory employs models of virus infection and cancer alongside clinical cohort studies to advance HIV cure-directed research, cancer immunotherapy, innate immune responses, myeloid cell targeting in cancer, substance use disorder effects on HIV reservoirs, and antiviral discovery from natural products. He directs the BEAT-HIV Martin Delaney Collaboratory and iCure Consortium, leading NIH-funded international collaborations spanning the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Europe, South America, Southern Africa, and Vietnam, including clinical trials and community engagement via the HIV-1 Patient Partnership Program. Key publications include 'Bispecific antibodies promote natural killer cell-mediated elimination of HIV-1 reservoir cells' (2024, Nature Immunology), 'Cloning and functional characterization of novel human neutralizing anti-interferon-alpha and anti-interferon-beta antibodies' (2024, Journal of Immunology), 'Gene-modified NK cells expressing CD64 and preloaded with HIV-specific BNAbs target autologous HIV-1-infected CD4+ T cells by ADCC' (2025, Journal of Immunology), 'Ex vivo and in vivo HIV-1 latency reversal by “Mukungulu,” a protein kinase C-activating African medicinal plant extract' (2025, mBio), and 'Targeting LxCxE Cleft Pocket of Retinoblastoma Protein in Immunosuppressive Macrophages Inhibits Ovarian Cancer Progression' (2025, Cancer Immunology Research). Montaner organizes the annual Jonathan Lax Memorial Lecture at Wistar, honoring HIV research pioneers.