Viruses this year!
(October 6th 2008) "They gave it to who...?" Yes, it's that time of the year again, the moment when the Nobel Prize committee chooses a theme to honour. And for 2008, the Nobel Prize for Medicine has gone to viruses, with a two-way split between HIV and the papilloma virus, reports Jeremy Garwood.
Furthermore, it's an all-European award this year - Harald zur Hausen, is a German MD from the University of Dusseldorf, Professor emeritus (born in 1936) and former Chairman and Scientific Director of the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg. In the 1970's, he postulated that human papilloma virus (HPV) played a role in cervical cancer. He traced and characterised the presence of different HPV types in human biopsies (the HPV DNA integrates into cellular genomes when causing cancer). In particular, he found the tumourigenic HPV16 and HPV18, which occur in 70% of cervical cancer biopsies.
Meanwhile, during the 1980's, the French researchers, Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barré-Sinoussi, discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while working at the Institut Pasteur, Paris. They cultured lymph node cells from patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and isolated the novel retrovirus. HIV is an enveloped RNA virus that encodes its own reverse transcriptase, generating a DNA genome upon cellular infection that integrates into the host cell's genome. It requires cell activation for replication and targets cells of the immune system, in particular T lymphocytes.
Both discoveries have resulted in significant improvements in medical treatment.
HPV infection accounts for 5% of all cancers worldwide. It is the most common sexually transmitted agent, afflicting more than half the human population. Cancer of the cervix is the second most common tumour in women. 15 of the known HPV types put women at high risk, being detected in 99.7% of women with cervical cancer. Zur Hausen's research has led to an understanding of the mechanisms of HPV-induced carcinogenesis and the development of vaccines that provide greater than 95% protection from infection against the high risk HPV 16 and 18.
The AIDS epidemic currently affects around 1% of the world population. The isolation of HIV and the cloning of its genome soon led to the development of the diagnostic AIDS blood test and subsequent development of retroviral treatments. But initially Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi found themselves embroiled in a bitter, long-running legal and political dispute with the US researcher, Robert Gallo, who falsely claimed to have independently discovered HIV in samples that they had originally sent him. Montagnier, 76, is currently Director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, based in Paris. Barré-Sinoussi, 61, is still at the Institut Pasteur, Director of the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit in the Virology Department.
