2008 Nobel Prize Winners In The Sciences Announced

摘要

The $1.4 million Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2008 will be shared by three European scientists for identifying the roles of sexually transmitted viruses in causing cervical cancer and AIDS.rnHalf of the prize goes to Harald zur Hausen of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg for his discovery that the human papillomavirus, or HPV, causes cervical cancer. He and his team isolated HPV DNA from cervical tumors in the lab and identified HPV-16 and HPV-18 - the two strains that cause most cervical cancers. Zur Hausen made his recombinant samples of viral DNA available to other scientists, and the subsequent research cleared the way for the HPV screening and vaccines available today.