Francoise Barre Sinoussi

Two French researchers who discovered the human AIDS virus and a German scientist who showed that human papilloma virus causes cervical cancer were awarded Monday the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The decision in effect ends the long-running dispute between France's Luc Monta- gnier and America's Robert Gallo, concluding that Monta- gnier and his colleague Francoise Barre-Sinoussi were the discoverers of the virus. More than 33 million people worldwide are HIV carriers.

Fearing that the global economic crisis could cause nations to renege on commitments to fight tuberculosis, new Nobel laureate and HIV co-discoverer Francoise Barre-Sinoussi warned that a drop in TB funding could wipe out gains made against AIDS because so many people suffer from both diseases. "We are at the period of success with antiretroviral treatment" for HIV, Barre-Sinoussi said Tuesday during a teleconference from the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

\o7Francoise Barre-Sinoussi was a research associate at the Pasteur Institute in Paris when she was the first to detect the human immunodeficiency virus in 1983. She has studied the virus ever since. Barre-Sinoussi, 58, is now head of one of the institute's retroviral research groups. \f7 * PARIS -- The retroviral group begins gathering at 10 a.m. for its usual Friday meeting. Up on the screen is a picture of a spiky AIDS virus surrounded by immune cells.