William Campbell and Satoshi Omura were awarded the prize for their work on a therapy against roundworm and combating parasites in humans.
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China’s YouYou Tu was awarded the other half of the medical Nobel for her discoveries related to the antimalarial drug artemisiner.
Three researchers have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their pioneering work on therapies targeting the parasitic diseases river blindness and malaria.
With their discovery, Kajita and McDonald helped prove that neutrinos must have mass, thereby changing “our understanding of the innermost workings of matter”, the Nobel committee said.
River Blindness, also known as onchocerciasis or Robles’ Disease, is caused by transmission of the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus by black flies of the genus Simulium. Meanwhile, Campbell recovered the cultures from Omura and conducted experiments with these on farm animals in New Jersey.
“The importance of Ivermectin for improving the health and wellbeing of millions of individuals with River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, primarily in the poorest regions of the world, is immeasurable”.
Today, Ivermectin is freely available and used in all places where parasitic diseases are found. It is so effective that these diseases are on the verge of being eradicated.
She does have a Nobel Prize though.
An estimated 100 million malaria cases and about 300,000 deaths each year make Nigeria the country with the highest number of malaria casualties worldwide, official statistics, released during the World Malaria Day 2015, said.
Campbell and Satoshi Omura developed an innovative new drug called Avermectin. She screened many herbal remedies for malaria in animals, and found one, a compound found in the sweet wormwood plant (Artemisia annua), that seemed promising.
Elephantiasis, or lymphatic filariasis, is a mosquito-borne infection which causes grotesque and disfiguring swelling of the limbs. She was enrolled to a pharmacology school here after which she began researching at the Academy of Chinese Traditional Medicine.
Among the most efficient killers of parasites, he discovered, was a purified version of Avermectin. “The successful finding of artemisinin is the collective achievement of the research team, and it is a collective honor for all Chinese scientists”, Tu said.
As a junior researcher, she was recruited by Chairman Mao’s government to work on a military project in 1969 to find malaria drugs.
The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded on Monday to three scientists from Ireland, Japan and China.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is given out to scientists for groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of biology and medicine.
Since 1901, the committee has handed out the Nobel Prize in physics 108 times.
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The peace prize will be awarded in Oslo on Friday, with the economics prize wrapping up the Nobel season next Monday.
