Three European scientists won the 2008 Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering the viruses that cause cervical cancer and AIDS

Harald zur Hausen of Germany was awarded the priz  for his discovery of the human papilloma viruses that can cause cervical cancer in women, while Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France achieved the honour  for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.

Sweden's Karolinska Institute, which awarded the prize, said the German scientist received half of the $1.4 million US prize, while the two French scientists shared  the other half.

Barre-Sinoussi, born in 1947, is a Professor at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, heading up the Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit in the Virology Department.

Montagnier, born in 1932, is a Professor Emeritus and director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris.

Zur Hausen, 72, is a Professor Emeritus and former chairman and scientific director of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg.

Medicine is traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes to be awarded every year.

Last year, the Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to American researchers Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Briton Martin Evans for their work on a technique that manipulates genes in mice. That technique has enabled scientists to study heart disease, diabetes, cancer and cystic fibrosis, among other diseases.

The ceremony for the formal awarding of the prizes will take place in Stockholm on December 10^th.