Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1966

Peyton Rous
“for his discovery of tumour-inducing viruses”
Peyton Rous’ demonstration that viruses can cause tumours in chickens remained a biological curiosity for decades.
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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1969

Max Delbrück, Alfred D. Hershey and Salvador E. Luria
“for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses”
A physicist, a biochemist and a physician helped to reveal how viruses replicate.
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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1975

David Baltimore, Renato Dulbecco and Howard Temin
“for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell”
Baltimore, Dulbecco and Temin uncovered what happens when tumour-inducing viruses infect normal cells.
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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1989

J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus
“for their discovery of “the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes”.
Two colleagues who showed how disturbing a large family of genes that control the normal growth and division of cells can cause normal cells to transform into cancer cells. Read more

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1996

Peter C. Doherty and Rolf M. Zinkernagel
“for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence”
Their discovery showed how the immune system recognizes virus-infected cells.
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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1908

Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov and Paul Ehrlich
“in recognition of their work on immunity”
Mechnikov and Ehrlich’s pioneering research revealed ways in which the immune system fights disease.
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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1965

François Jacob, André Lwoff, Jacques Monod
“for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis”
Working together in Paris, these three researchers showed how vital functions of viruses are controlled by genes.
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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1954

John Franklin Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller and Frederick Chapman Robbins
“for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue”
This team were the first to cultivate and isolate viruses in the laboratory, which finally gave researchers the means in which to investigate and tackle virus-based diseases.
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First published 6 October 2008.