Discovery of AIDS-causing virus HIV won Nobel Prize in 2008

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which lowers the body's ability to fight off infections leading to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), was discovered by French researchers Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier in 1984. Their work partially explained how HIV attacks body's T-cells, essential for immunity, and won them the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.