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One Day They're Scientists, the Next They're Nobel Laureates

Oct 07, 2008

French scientists Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were awarded the Nobel prize for medicine for their work discovering HIV as the cause of AIDS; meanwhile, German researcher Harald zur Hausen received the prize as well for demonstrating the link between human papilloma virus and cervical cancer.

Abel Pharmboy blogs at Terra Sigillata that American scientist Robert Gallo, "whose role in the HIV discovery has been long disputed," is "notably absent" from the HIV award. "That this Nobel can only be awarded to a sum total of three individuals means that the committee chose to honor zur Hausen's seminal work on HPV rather than acknowledge Gallo's questionable role on HIV (ouch!)," he adds.

 

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