Nobel Prize 2008 in medicine honors viruses!

The Nobel Prize for medicine this year rewarded the works of two French on HIV: Françoise Barré - Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier and a German named Harald zur Hausen on his work on cervical cancer of uterus. The French are considered to be the first to discover the virus of the aqcuired immunodeficiency syndrom, in fact they was widely recognized and despite the debate.

HIV has already killed 25 million people since its discovery in 1983. And the work of these two French "have been essential to understand current biology of this disease and its retroviral treatment, "Luc Montagnier has dedicated his reward "to all AIDS patients" and announced a "therapeutic vaccine" within four years.

The German Harald zur Hausen has isolated the human papilloma virus "or papillomavirus (HPV) responsible of the cancer of the cervix, the second type of cancer more prevalent among women with 500,000 cases each year. In fact HPV is one of the few viruses that leads to cancer after contamination, and this is due to its mode of integration into the human genome. The German researcher will receive half of the price of 10 million Swedish kronor equals 1.02 million euros and the two French winners share the second half.

The Nobel Prize in physics was shared by 3 Japanese for their work on the causes of the abolition of the super symmetry in the universe, infact, after the Big Bang, a quantity of material equal to a quantity antimatter were produced .. but as we know: matter and antimatter cancel each other releasing energy, but this didn't happen in our universe, so there is a break of symmetry, and permits to our universe to exist. The work of Japanese have allowed a better understanding of this phenomenon by discovering the existence of three types of Quarks that are sub-constituents of neutrons, protons in addition to all other subatomic particles..

Note that the Nobel Prize was created in 1901 as chemist Alfred Nobel had wished. French was 53 rewarded 13 times in literature, 12 physics, 10 Medicine, 9 in Peace, 8 in Chemistry, and 1 in Economics. The price Nobel does not recompence mathematics, the legend says that Alfred Nobel was afraid that the mathematician who has stolen the heart of his beloved wife obtains the prices one day .. and was always .. Unfortunately if all men were like Nobel. :D

In fact these last days coincide with the discovery that HIV is more old as thought, and huge progress in the treatment by strengthening the immune system.








Click on the pictures to see the viral particles responsible of the AIDS