3 share Nobel for success in treatment of parasites

Jaswinder Singh Baidwan

Akhran da mureed
Staff member
Irish-born William Campbell, Satoshi Omura of Japan and China’s Youyou Tu won the Nobel Prize for medicine today for their discoveries of treatments against parasites, the jury said.
Campbell and Omura shared one half of the prize for “their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites”, while Tu won the other half “for discoveries concerning a novel therapy against malaria,” the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said.
Campbell and Omura discovered a drug, Avermectin, “the derivatives of which have radically lowered the incidence of River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, as well as showing efficacy against an expanding number of other parasitic diseases,” a statement from the Nobel Assembly said.
Tu, 84, meanwhile discovered Artemisinin, a drug that has significantly reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from malaria, it added. She based her discovery on Chinese traditional herbal medicine.
“These two discoveries have provided humankind with powerful new means to combat these debilitating diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people annually. The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immeasurable,” the committee said.
This year’s Nobel laureates will share the eight million Swedish kronor (around $9,50,000) prize sum. Last year, the prize went to British-American researcher John O’Keefe and a Norwegian couple, Edvard Moser and May- Britt Moser, for discovering the brain’s “inner GPS” that helps people navigate.
 
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