david and marta's bloggy blog

david and marta's bloggy blog
.
.

Monday, October 6, 2008

medicine and physiology

the nobels for medicine and physiology go to harald zur hausen "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer", a finding that went against all the prevailing dogma of the time; and to françoise barré-sinoussi and luc montagnier "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus", a discovery that helped set the stage for current antiretroviral treatments.
(3d rendering of the humam immunodeficiency virus)

i wouldn't think there would be much controversy with these awards. they are two undoubtably important discoveries that are very pertinent to medicine, science, and the world.

up next, physics...

2 comments:

Bonita said...

I think the HIV controversy is based on Dr Robert Gallo also claiming he discovered HIV around the same time those Frenchies at Pasteur claimed the same...a dispute that regretfully put HIv research behind for a while, have you seen "And the Band Played on". I believe that is what it is about. The HPV controversy I know nothing of...but its ironic that both prizes were awarded to the discovery of viruses with only one letter difference in their acronym. : )

dwstaple said...

actually, when i said "i wouldn't think there would be much controversy with these awards", i wasn't referring to any specific controversy. i was just referring to the fact that the announcement of the nobel prizes often stirs up anger and resentment about folks who were left out, or other discoveries that could have been recognized instead. thanks for bringing this present controversy to light. i'll put "and the band played on" on our queue.