Nobel Prize for HIV Discovery
posted: 06/10/2008
Three Europeans were awarded the Nobel Prize today, for their virus research into HIV and into HPV (the virus that causes cervical cancer).
The 2008 Nobel Prize for Medicine will be shared among three European researchers for their pivotal work in identifying the viruses that cause cervical cancer and HIV infection.
Half the 2008 medical Nobel Prize will be shared by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and Luc Montagnier, now at the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris, for work that culminated in their early 1980s discovery that a strange retrovirus, later called the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, was the cause of AIDS. Their work, done at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, was confirmed in the United States a year later by Robert Gallo. The HIV discovery cleared the way for the development of drugs to combat the disease.
The other half of the Nobel prize goes to Harald zur Hausen, now at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, for his discovery that the human papillomavirus, or HPV, causes cervical cancer. His work in the 1970s and 1980s laid the foundation for a full onslaught against HPV. In recent years, scientists have developed and made available for commercial use a vaccine against HPV, marketed as Gardasil by Merck. It is the first vaccine against a cancer, preventing key strains of HPV infection that cause most cervical cancers. HPV has since been linked to other cancers as well. HPV is the virus that causes genital warts (including anal warts) which can be a particular problem affecting mainly gay men living with HIV.
The other half of the 2008 medical Nobel Prize will be split by Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and Luc Montagnier, now at the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris, for work that culminated in the early 1980s discovery that a strange retrovirus, later called the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, was the cause of AIDS. Their work, done at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, was confirmed in the United States a year later by Robert Gallo. The HIV discovery cleared the way for the development of drugs to combat the disease.
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