Three scientists win Nobel Prize in medicine

In the 1960s, her research on herbal medicine yielded the discovery of the plant component Artemisinin, which was a breakthrough drug in the treatment of malaria.

The 2015 Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has awarded this year’s prize for physiology or medicine to three researchers for their contributions in developing novel therapies against malaria and roundworm parasite infection, according to a press release.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015 has been awarded to three scientists for discoveries that have transformed treatment of malaria and a few other parasitic diseases, which afflict hundreds of millions of people each year.

“The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immeasurable”, it added.

River blindness is an eye and skin disease that ultimately leads to blindness. The World Health Organization has been trying to treat these conditions since 1987.

Campbell and Satoshi Omura were recognized for discovering a compound that effectively kills roundworm parasites. He said mass distribution campaigns have given out ivermectin for free to 450 million people in efforts to eliminate both river blindness and lymphatic filariasis.

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.

Professor Campbell is a graduate of Trinity College in Dublin and the third to have been awarded a Nobel Prize. It saves more than 100,000 lives per year in Africa alone.

Campbell and Satoshi Omura developed an innovative new drug called Avermectin.

Tu, 85, has been chief professor of the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine since 2000.

A few analysts point out that Ivermectin has become widely used because it is highly effective in the treatment of parasites in animals, presenting considerable financial gain from research and development and commercial production for the agricultural sector. Filariasis, which is sometimes called elephantiasis, is caused when microscopic worms block the lymphatic system and cause massive swelling to the legs or other parts of the body.

“This was during the cultural revolution, when Chinese scientists and other intellectuals were sent off the countryside to do hard labor and be publicly humiliated”, says Keith Arnold, who was researching malaria on the US side at the time and would later work with the Chinese researchers. They found that a compound extracted from the wormwood was effective in treating malaria. The AMED, established in line with the government strategy, covers studies on infectious diseases as one of its core operations.

The Nobel Prize for Physics will be announced on Tuesday.

Besides the cash prize, each victor also gets a diploma and a gold medal at the annual award ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is to be announced next Monday.