Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- German scientist Harald zur Hausen and France's Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were awarded the Nobel Prize for identifying viruses that cause cervical cancer and AIDS.

Zur Hausen's discovery of the human papillomavirus led to an understanding of the causes of the malignancy, the Stockholm- based Nobel Foundation said today in an e-mailed statement. Barre-Sinoussi and Montagnier were recognized for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus.

Zur Hausen's discovery paved the way for the development of Merck & Co.'s Gardasil and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Cervarix vaccines. The shots could help protect the 500,000 women who are affected by cervical cancer every year, the Foundation said.

``It was his vision that the virus causes cancer and he persistently searched for proof,'' Matthias Duerst, one of Zur Hausen's former students, said in a telephone interview. Duerst is a professor of molecular biology at the University of Jena.

The French researchers' discovery hasn't led to a protective medicine yet, but was instrumental in the development of drugs that enable HIV-infected patients to live almost as long as those who don't carry the virus in their bodies.

Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 and the prizes were first handed out the following year.

An economics prize was created in 1969 in memory of Nobel by the Swedish central bank. Only the peace prize is awarded outside Sweden, by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eva von Schaper in Munich at evonschaper@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 6, 2008 07:23 EDT