October 6, 2008 - This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recognizes the discoveries of two viruses causing severe human diseases. The 2008 prize was awarded to Harald zur Hausen, a foreign associate of the Institute of Medicine, for his discovery that human papilloma viruses cause cervical cancer, and to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, the discoverers of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Human papilloma virus can be detected in 99.7 percent of women with histologically confirmed cervical cancer, affecting some 500,000 women per year; more than 5 percent of all cancers worldwide are caused by persistent infection with this virus. The discovery of human immunodeficiency virus was a prerequisite for the current understanding of the biology and treatment of AIDS, a disease that has led to a global epidemic affecting close to 1 percent of the world's population.

• Nobel Prize Announcement