Flashback The Age of AIDS

October 6, 2008

“We saw the solution. All we needed to do was to add cells to the culture.”
Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2008

Among the many extraordinary stories told in FRONTLINE's much-acclaimed four-hour series, The Age of AIDS, was the tale of how the elusive virus was finally identified. It was, and remains, a gripping narrative -- two rival research labs, one French and one American, desperately tracking the cause of a mysterious killer that was already on its way to becoming one of the worst pandemics in recorded history.

Today, the two French scientists who made the discovery, Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, were awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

If the excerpt hooks you, you can see the entire series online, and dip into the materials behind it, on the series homepage.