On Oct. 6, 2008, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi was awarded a share of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

In 1983, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montaigner discovered a retrovirus in patients with swollen lymph glands that attacked lymphocytes – a kind of blood cell that is very important to the body’s immune system. The retrovirus, later named Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), proved to be the cause of the immunodeficiency disease AIDS.