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Stockholm: Two French scientists who discovered the AIDS virus and a German who found the virus that causes cervical cancer were awarded the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology on Monday.
Luc Montagnier, director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi of the Institut Pasteur won half the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.4 million) for discovering the deadly virus that has killed 25 million people since it was identified in the 1980s.
Harald zur Hausen (72), professor emeritus and former chairman and scientific director of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, shared the other half of the prize for work that went against the conventional wisdom about the cause of cervical cancer.
"The three laureates have discovered two new viruses of great importance and the result of that has led to an improved global health," said Jan Andersson, a member of the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute.
Montagnier told reporters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where he was holding a lecture, that the award sent a strong message.
"It comes at a time when much progress has been done in research, but not enough because the epidemic is still there," Montagnier said. "We are in Africa. Many infected people do not have access to medicine."
Harald zur Hausen of claimed that human papilloma virus (HPV) causes cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women, the jury said.
The French pair's HIV discovery was "one prerequisite for the current understanding of the biology of the disease and its antiretroviral treatment," the Nobel citation said.
Their work "led to development of methods to diagnose infected patients and to screen blood products, which has limited the spread of the pandemic," it said.
Barre-Sinoussi, born in 1947, is a professor at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, heading up the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit in the Virology Department.
Montagnier, born in 1932, is a professor emeritus and director of the World Foundation for Aids Research and Prevention in Paris.
Silent killer
Hausen was rewarded for his work against cervival cancer, which is sometimes called "the silent killer" of women because it is so often tragically undetected until too late. "His discovery has led to characterisation of the natural history of HPV infection, and understanding of mechanisms of HPV-induced carcinogenesis and the development and the development of prophylactic vaccines against HPV acquisition," the jury said.
Today, there is not only a simple smear test that can detect HPV, there are also two effective vaccines against it.
Zur Hausen, 72, is a professor emeritus and former chairman and scientific director of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg.
The Medicine Prize is the first award to be announced in this year's Nobel season. The Physics Prize is to be announced on Tuesday followed by the Chemistry Prize on Wednesday.
Key facts: Killer diseases
- HIV/Aids: Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi won the Nobel for discovering the deadly virus that has killed millions of people since it was identified in the 1980s.
- There is no cure for HIV, which gradually destroys the immune system. Drug cocktails called highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART can control infection and keep patients healthy. Global deaths from Aids reached an estimated 2 million in 2007. Some 33 million people were living with immunodeficiency virus infections in 2007, most of them in Africa.
- Cervical cancer: Harald zur Hausen shared the other half of the prize for work that went against the current dogma as to the cause of cervical cancer.
- Cervical cancer is the second most common type of cancer in women. Each year an estimated 500,000 women are diagnosed with the disease and about 300,000 die from it, mostly in the developing world.
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