2 AIDS researchers receive Nobel Prize

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-nobel-medicine-07-oct07,0,5388041.story

2 AIDS researchers receive Nobel Prize
3rd scientist wins for finding papilloma virus, cervical cancer tie
By Jeremy Manier
Chicago Tribune reporter
October 7, 2008

Two French researchers who discovered the AIDS virus were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday, capping a long-running dispute over who should get credit for the historic finding.

The scientists shared the prize with Germany's Harald zur Hausen, who found that certain human papilloma viruses cause cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women worldwide.

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France were cited for their discovery of HIV in 1983. The award brought historical closure to an HIV controversy in which Tribune reporter John Crewdson played a prominent role starting in the late 1980s.

An American researcher, Dr. Robert Gallo, an expert on retroviruses, also contributed to discovery of the AIDS virus but was not included in Monday's award. Gallo and the French team argued for years over who deserved credit for the discovery, though since the 1980s both sides have largely put aside the old disagreement.

Reached in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where he is attending an international AIDS conference, Montagnier told the Associated Press he wished Gallo had been included in the prize.

"It is certain that he deserved this as much as us two," he said.

Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland, told the AP that it was "a disappointment" not to share the Nobel but that all three winners deserved the honor.

AIDS posed a horrifying mystery when it was first identified in 1981. No one understood exactly what caused the disease, how it spread or all the groups that might be at risk.

Scientific groups raced to isolate the cause of the disease, including the French team and Gallo, then a prominent researcher at the National Cancer Institute. The group led by Montagnier and Barre-Sinoussi announced in 1983 that it had discovered the virus that caused AIDS, followed by Gallo's competing claim the next year.

The two groups squabbled in scientific journals, meetings and in courtrooms over who had been first to isolate the virus. Prestige aside, the question was pivotal because it would decide who got royalties from AIDS tests based on the discovery.

The political debate largely ended in 1987, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan and French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac agreed that the two teams should get equal recognition for the discovery and share proceeds from any AIDS tests. But that agreement did not settle the scientific question.

Journalists continued to chronicle the dispute, including writer Randy Shilts in his 1987 book "And the Band Played On." In 1989 the Tribune published a 50,000-word investigative report by Crewdson suggesting that Gallo had not independently discovered the virus at all, and that his lab results were contaminated by samples he received from the French.

Gallo later confirmed that a viral strain from the French lab had contaminated his work, but he said it was an honest mistake. A federal investigation in 1993 exonerated Gallo and concluded: "One might anticipate that from all this evidence, after all the sound and fury, there would be at least a residue of palpable wrongdoing. That is not the case." In 1994 the U.S. government agreed to give France more royalties, acknowledging that Gallo had relied on the French virus.

Many scientists view Gallo as a controversial figure, but few question his significant contribution to the field of virology.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

jmanier@tribune.com