Julio Montaner, Olav Slaymaker, Honoured

The onslaught of viral infections from within, the changing mountainous landscapes from without — both came together when HIV expert and UBC medicine professor Julio Montaner and geography professor emeritus Olav Slaymaker were named to the Order of Canada and what is this country’s highest civilian honour.

Slaymaker was appointed as a Member “for advancing the field of geology, notably through his research on landform evolution.” As in the ongoing global environmental changes in mountainous landscapes, emphasizing the roles of relief, hydro-climatology and human activities. Slaymaker was also the recent recipient of the the prestigious David Linton Award from the British Geomorphological Research Group.

Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, was named an Officer, the Order’s second highest level. Beginning with his early work at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, Montaner developed the antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and ‘HIV cocktail’ adopted by the World Health Organization and the UN AIDS program in 2000.

Montaner is no stranger to kudos.

Earlier in the month, in advance of World AIDS Day, he was lauded by BC Health Minister Terry Lake: “Nobody in Canada has made a bigger contribution to the field of HIV/AIDS research and treatment than Dr. Julio Montaner.”

In October 2014, Montaner was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and whose few, select Laureates are deemed as “individuals whose outstanding contributions to medicine and the health sciences have led to extraordinary improvements in human health.”