The The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. Montagnier is the director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris. Barre-Sinoussi works in the virology department at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. The two scientists split the prize with Dr. Harald zur Hausen of the University of Dusseldorf who discovered the viruses that cause genital warts and cervical cancer.
The Nobel Prize committee commended the French scientists for their work identifying the virus that caused AIDS, work that established the foundation for further scientific characterization of HIV. In the 1980's Montangier and Barre-Sinoussi isolated and cultured cells from the lymph nodes of patients suspected to be infected with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). In lab experiments they found the enzyme retroviral enzyme reverse transcriptase, which indicated the presence of a retrovirus in the lymph nodes. They then infected lymphocytes from donors with their retrovirus and found that the virus killed healthy lymphocytes which helped show that this virus was the infectious agent responsible for changing the immune response in the body and causing AIDS.
The discovery of the HIV virus was contentious, with US scientist Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier each saying that they were first to discover the virus. Some early news media reports on the discovery in the 1980's said that the French team discovered the virus, while others indicated it was Gallo who first identified the virus. The French and US teams published papers in 1983 and 1984, and each filed patent claims for their discovery. It got a little heated with both teams vying not only for recognition but for the profits associated with the development of the test for HIV. New Scientist called the long running dispute "the tackiest sagas in the history of medicine..." (albeit with a lot at stake)
The two governments led by President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac finally agreed to let both teams share recognition for the discovery. You can get a sense of how sharing worked for them in an article published in Scientific American in 1988 (when the magazine actually published full length articles). Gallo and Montagnier wrote the article, describing the scientific unraveling of the AIDS mystery at length and punctuating the interesting account with "clarifiers": "one of us ([Gallo or Montagnier])" or "the other of us [(insert name)]. Gallo later acknowledged that the strain of the HIV virus the French isolated had contaminated his lab's work. On yesterday's announcement of the Nobel Prize both teams cordially commended the other for the work each did.
The Nobel Foundation will announce more prizes this week and next. The physics prize was awarded today to three physicists from Japan and the US for their discovery of nature's broken symmetry. The announcement for the prize in Chemistry will be tomorrow. Literature and Peace will follow this week, with the Economics prize awarded next Monday.
