discoveries." Montagnier was the co-founder of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention and co-directed the Program for International Viral Collaboration. He was the founder and a former president of the Houston-based World Foundation for Medical Research and Prevention. He received more than 20 major awards, including the National Order of Merit (Commander, 1986) and the Légion d'honneur (Knight: 1984; Officer: 1990; Commander: 1993; Grand Officer: 2009), He was a recipient of the Lasker Award and the Scheele Award (1986), the Louis-Jeantet Prize for medicine (1986), the Gairdner Award (1987), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1987), King Faisal International Prize (1993) (known as the Arab Nobel Prize), and the Prince of Asturias Award (2000). He was also a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine. Montagnier was awarded the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from Whittier College in 2010. Controversies Electromagnetic signals from DNA In 2009, Montagnier published two independently made, controversial research studies, one of which was entitled "Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA Sequences." Jeff Reimers of the University of Sydney said that, if its conclusions are true, "these would be the most significant experiments performed in the past 90 years, demanding re-evaluation of the whole conceptual framework of modern chemistry". The paper concludes that diluted DNA from pathogenic bacterial and viral species is able to emit specific radio waves" and that "these radio waves [are] associated with 'nanostructures' in the solution that might be able to recreate the pathogen". They were published in a new journal of which he was chairman of the editorial board, allegedly detecting electromagnetic signals from bacterial DNA (M. pirum and E. coli) in water that had been prepared using agitation and high dilutions, and similar research on electromagnetic detection of HIV RNA in the blood of AIDS patients treated by antiretroviral therapy. Homeopathy On 28 June 2010, Montagnier spoke at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany, "where 60 Nobel prize winners had gathered, along with 700 other scientists, to discuss the latest breakthroughs in medicine, chemistry and physics." He "stunned his colleagues ... when he presented a new method for detecting viral infections that bore close parallels to the basic tenets of homeopathy. Although fellow Nobel prize winners – who view homeopathy as quackery – were left openly shaking their heads, Montagnier's comments were rapidly embraced by homeopaths eager