Wain-Hobson obtained a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Oxford in 1977, served as a post-doctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science from 1977 to 1980, and thereafter moved to the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Wain-Hobson and his research group at the Pasteur Institute were the first to publish the sequence of HIV, which was also the first full sequence of a primate lentivirus.[1][2] Wain-Hobson is holder of licensed patents on HIV genomes and diagnostics.[3]
Wain-Hobson's most recent work involves the role of APOBEC3 in cancer and other human diseases.[4][5] Wain-Hobson is a co-founder of Invectys Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of immunotherapy approaches to the treatment of cancer.
Wain-Hobson won the André Lwoff prize in 1996 and Athena prize from the French Academy of Sciences in 2007 and is Officier de la Légion d’Honneur.[6]