Nobel Prize in Medicine

Three people shared this year's Nobel Prize in medicine. One of them was Harald zur Hausen for the discovery of human papilloma virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer. I remember studying about this in my virology class, and I round it absolutely fascinating that a virus could cause cancer. This has even lead to a vaccine (rather controversial unfortunately thanks to the abstinence only crowd), but I'm hoping it will soon be commonplace. Congratulations to him and all the many, many people who undoubtedly helped him with this.

Congratulations also to Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi (and their teams) who also shared the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Now not to in any way diminish their accomplishment, but there's a third person who is also deserving of this recognition: Robert Gallo. Back in 1985 Gallo in the US and Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi in France figured out HIV separately but at the same time. In fact, Gallo probably got more publicity for this at the time, and their professional rivalry turned ugly. However, in 1987 they agreed to bury the hatchet and share the credit. I know it's a long and complicated story, and I'm in no position to judge. However, if the rivals in question can agree to share, I think it's particularly bad form for the Nobel Prize committee to acknowledge two but not the third, thus promoting rivalry instead of cooperation. It makes me lose respect for the Nobel committee and the prize as a whole, and that's a shame. For me, the Nobel Prize in Medicine would be the pinnacle of achievement--better than an Olympic gold medal, or an Oscar, or a Pulitzer prize.


If you'd like to know more about the discovery of HIV, I highly recommend the movie And The Band Played On which, while biased, is both informative and entertaining. As an extra added bonus, it show biomedical researchers doing more than pipetting.

While I'm on the subject, I'd like to give an extra "you go girl!" to Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, since only 4.2% of the people who have won a Nobel Prize in Medicine are women. If you were to look around research labs today, women are well represented, yet it's still the men who get the credit. I hope that that is changing.