2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has been awarded to the German scientist Harald zur Hausen and a team of two French scientists: Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier.  

Two French researchers who discovered the human AIDS virus shared the $1.4-million prize with Dr. Harald zur Hausen of the University of Dusseldorf who discovered the viruses that cause genital warts and are responsible for an estimated 500,000 cases of cervical cancer each year.

The German researcher made the link between the HPV and cervical cancer. Hausen’s discovery of the human papilloma virus led to an understanding of the causes of cervical cancer. Professor Hausen discovered the new, tumourigenic HPV 16 type in 1983. The following year, he showed that a second strain, HPV-18, was in some tomors. He cloned the two viruses and made them available to other researchers. According to the World Health Organization, every year there are 500 thousand new cases of cervical cancers.

The Nobel Assembly said the discovery of human immunodeficiency virus was vital in enabling scientists to begin to understand the biology of a virus which continues to pose a huge public health threat throughout the globe. Their work led to the development of new treatments and new methods to diagnose infected patients.

“The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008 with one half to Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer and the other half jointly to Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus or HIV,” announced Hans Jörnvall on behalf of the Nobel Committee at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday.

The Nobel Assembly’s decision puts an end to the long-running dispute between France’s Luc Montagnier and America’s Robert Gallo over who discovered the virus, concluding that Montagnier and his colleague Francoise Barre-Sinoussi were the discoverers of the virus. Bertil Fredholm, head of the Nobel Committee at the Karolinska Institute, told reporters that the groundbreaking research “had been made in France.” Gallo was disappointed that his HIV work wasn’t honoured. Montagnier said he too wished Gallo had been honoured for the discovery.   

According to the Nobel Committee, the team of French researchers isolated research on the early stage of acquired immune deficiency or AIDS and detected activity of the retroviral enzyme reverse transcriptase, a direct proof of retrovirus replication. The French team led by Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi announced in 1983 that it had discovered the virus that causes AIDS. The discovery led to the developments of methods to diagnose infected patients and has allowed identification of important details in its replication cycle, which has in time limited the spread of the disease.

Medicine is traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes to be awarded every year. The medicine prize was the first of the six prestigious awards to be announced this year. The others are chemistry, physics, literature, peace and economics. The Nobel prize was first awarded in Peace, Literature, Chemistry, Physiology, or Medicine and Physics in 1901. The economics prize was created by Sweden’s central bank in 1968 and first awarded in 1969.