07/10/2008
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French, German scientists share Nobel Medicine Prize
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STOCKHOLM: France’s Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier shared the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for their discovery of the HIV virus, along with a German scientist for his groundbreaking research into cervical cancer.
Harald zur Hausen won the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology for his discovery of "human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer". The other half was jointly won by Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of "human immunodeficiency virus" Sweden's Karolinska Institute said on Monday.
Luc Montagnier was born in 1932 in France, and gained a PhD in virology at the University of Paris. He became a Professor emeritus and Director, World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris.
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi was born in 1947 in France and gained a PhD in virology at the Institute Pasteur in Garches, France. She joined the Pasteur Institute in Paris in the early 1970s, and has been an outstanding leader in the field of retrovirology for many years.
Harald Zur Hausen gained an MD at University of Duesseldorf; went against current dogma and postulated that human papilloma virus caused cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women.
His finding led to two vaccines that protect against certain strains of the virus.-Reuters
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