9WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG OCTOBER 13, 2008

THIS YEAR’S Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medi-cine goes to three Europeans for research link-ing human papillomaviruses to cancer and for

the discovery of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.Half of the $1.4 million prize goes to 72-year-old

German virologist Harald zur Hausen of the German Cancer Research Centre, in Heidelberg, “for his dis-covery of human papillomaviruses causing cervical cancer.”

“I knew that I was a candidate for the prize, but when it actually happened, it was a big surprise,” zur Hausen told C&EN. In the 1970s, zur Hausen “went against current dogma,” according to the Nobel Assembly, when he proposed that the human papil-lomaviruses (HPVs) play a role in cervical cancer.

“Zur Hausen’s talents and insights put his group at the forefront of an endeavor that three decades later” has produced a vaccine against HPVs that cause cervical and other cancers, says William Bonnez, a medical researcher at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and one of the inventors of an HPV vaccine to prevent cer-vical cancer.

Two French virologists will split the other half of the prize for their discovery of HIV. They are 76-year-old Luc Montagnier of the World Foundation for AIDS Re-search & Prevention and 61-year-old Françoise Barré-Sinoussi of the Pasteur Institute, in Paris.

Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi detected activity of the retroviral enzyme reverse transcriptase in samples

from infected patients and made important early ob-servations of how the virus affects the immune system, the Nobel Assembly noted.

“The significance of their achievements should be viewed in the context of a global ubiquitous epidemic affecting close to 1% of the population,” according to the Nobel Assembly.

The announcement that Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi will share the prize, but not University of Maryland researcher Robert Gallo, formerly of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, has raised some eyebrows and ignited the blogosphere.

“A Nobel Prize for HIV is long overdue,” says John M. Coffin, an HIV researcher at Tufts University. “But I would have thought Gallo would have been added to the list for his role in laying the groundwork for discov-ering HIV, in particular for developing ways of growing cells to assay for the virus.”

Gallo released a statement congratulating the win-ners and noting that he “was gratified to read Dr. Mon-tagnier’s kind statement expressing that I was equally deserving.” Gallo and Montagnier were involved in a harsh public debate over who discovered HIV. In the late 1980s, the debate came to a head over ownership of a patent for the HIV blood test. Former president Ron-ald Reagan and former french prime minister Jacques Chirac got involved, and finally, the two researchers agreed to split the patent and any subsequent income equally.—SARAH EVERTS

In the midst of a widening scandal involv-ing melamine-contaminated milk prod-ucts originating from China, FDA declared on Oct. 3 that food products with levels of the industrial chemical below 2.5 ppm pose little risk. The agency says it arrived at this threshold through a mix of hard data and scientific assumptions. But it says that no amount of melamine is ac-ceptable in infant formula because there is too much uncertainty to “rule out any public health concern.”

Setting a safety standard for melamine angered some members of Congress, who would rather see an outright ban on the toxic chemical in food. “By not insisting on a zero-tolerance policy with melamine, FDA is failing to protect consumers,” Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the House subcommittee that oversees FDA’s budget, said in a written statement.

Melamine first turned up last year in U.S. pet food, causing thousands of cats and dogs to die of kidney failure (C&EN, May

12, page 41). Now, melamine-tainted milk products have sickened thousands and killed at least four Chinese infants (C&EN, Sept. 29, page 18). In both incidents, the toxic nitrogen-rich chemical was intention-ally added to products to boost the results of protein analyses and hide the fact that the products had been “watered” down.

FDA says it is ramping up efforts to screen food products and monitor reports of melamine contamination from foreign sources.—BRITT ERICKSON

FOOD SAFETY Food & Drug Administration sets melamine safety level in food

NEWS OF THE WEEK

NOBEL PRIZE IN MEDICINE

AWARDS: Discoverers of HIV and cancer-causing human

papillomaviruses get the nod

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