Three scientists who discovered the causes of the two most lethal sexually-transmitted infections, Aids and cervical cancer, have been honoured today with the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Professor Luc Montagnier and Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, both from France, were awarded the prestigous accolade for identifying HIV, the virus that causes Aids, while Professor Harald zur Hausen was recognised for tracing the human papillomavirus (HPV) as the cause of cervical cancer.

While the prizes have been welcomed as richly deserved, the HIV part of the award has caused controversy because the Nobel Assembly has overlooked the claims of a third scientist who played a pivotal role in the discovery of HIV.

Professor Robert Gallo, an American, is widely accepted to have identified the human immunodeficiency virus independently of Professor Montagnier and Professor Barré-Sinoussi, though he published his first paper a year after his French rivals.

The two teams fought bitterly over which deserved priority, and a compromise that shared the credit was eventually brokered in 1987 by President Reagan and Jacques Chirac, who was then the French Prime Minister.

Professor Gallo, whose earlier work on the virus family to which HIV belongs was also important to the French team’s discovery, was not mentioned at all in today’s Nobel citation.

He described it as “a disappointment” not to have been included, though he said he accepted that all three of the recipients deserved their honours.

The Nobel Prize is never awarded to more than three people. On this occasion, the judges decided first to split the medicine award between the HPV and HIV discoveries, and then had to select three individuals to honour. Professor Gallo appears to have been the odd one out.

Most scientists in the field tend to give priority to the French team, and their paper is more heavily cited in recent scientific literature.

Hans Joernvall, secretary of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, which awards the medicine prize, said: “We gave the prize for the discovery of the virus. The two to whom we gave the prize, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, discovered the virus."

Some HIV researchers, however, said they shared Professor Gallo’s disappointment. Willy Rozenbaum, chairman of France’s National Aids Council, who was a member of the French team, said: “If you take away a piece of the puzzle, you end up with nothing. It was teamwork, and today only the Pasteur people are being rewarded, and it’s always a bit of a shame. That’s a bit of the negative side of the Nobel.”

Dr Barré-Sinoussi said today: “It is a conflict to be forgotten. It is also true that American teams were important in the discovery of the virus, and that should be recognised.”

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