William Campbell, Satoshi Omura, and Tu Youyou
Three scientists were awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the results of decades old that led to the "revolutionary treatment" for devastasting diseases in the developing world. William Campbell of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, and Satoshi Ōmura of Kitasato University in Tokyo share half the price to discover avermectin, a drug to kill roundworms that cause blindness and deformities. The other half of the prize goes to Tu Youyou of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing, discovered and refined artemisinin, which has proved very effective against severe malaria.
"The overall impact of the discovery and impact on humanity is immeasurable," Hans Forssberg, a neuroscientist and member of the Nobel Assembly, which selects the winners, said today at a press conference announcing the price.
"It is extremely rewarding to know that people in the development community have been recognized for the work that really helps people," says David Molyneux, who heads the program on neglected tropical diseases in the school of tropical medicine, Liverpool, UK Molyneux believes that ivermectin, a derivative of avermectin, was given more than a billion times, preventing more than 500,000 cases of blindness.
Ōmura, a microbiologist, was in search of useful compounds from soil bacteria in Japan, and has developed methods for the large-scale cultivation and the study of these microbes. Of thousands of cultures Streptomyces identified some 50 appeared to be good candidates for antimicrobial drugs. The study of these strains, Campbell found that one was particularly effective in killing roundworms in farm animals and pets. The active component was purified and named avermectin. Later versions were so effective in curing blindness parasitic disease lymphatic filariasis and river, causing gross deformities Does diseases have been virtually eradicated .
The key results have been described in these two document , both published in 1979 Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy .
The award came as a surprise to Ōmura. "I humbly accept," said the media arm of the Nobel Foundation in a telephone interview today. "I'm still not sure it is quite right for me to receive this award," at- he said later in an interview with the Japanese broadcasting company NHK. "There are a lot of talented researchers in Japan. What I do is just tedious. I'm expected a Nobel Prize. I am always proud that my work has helped people, I tried to help people. But this is different from being a Nobel Prize. "
" I'm in shock, "said Campbell science Insider. Unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, scientific Nobels can not be assigned to more than three people, he notes, "so I suppose there was no way the price could be given for it, because" it was a group effort. " Although the team's efforts are the norm in science, he said, "it was a team of teams."
The path of ö The soil sample mura to a drug used in African villages was long, Campbell said, and there were some moments of "Eureka" along the way. "We develop a very mild form of excitement," he said. "You do not suppose this will make all the way to the market or to the clinic."
Pharmacologist Tu Youyou also found an important drug from natural sources. Search if historical documents on traditional medicine Chinese, she noticed that wormwood was in hundreds of recipes for the treatment of malaria. When she tested extracts in mice, it has seen notes of an effect, but studies are inconclusive. a recipe a 1700 year book led you to a new method for extracting the active compound. This shift has led to artemisinin, which acts effectively on the early stage of the parasite life cycle. the drug "remarkably reduced the number of died over the past decades "for hundreds of millions of people infected with severe malaria, Forssberg said.
You won the Lasker Award in 2011 for his work on artemisinin first Chinese scientist to get this award. But many scientists in China were outraged that she was honored; they argued that the discovery was a mass effort involving thousands of researchers and the credit should not be you alone. The drug was increased project 523 (named for the date of its foundation 23 May 1967), an ambitious research arm of the People's Liberation Army working on orders of Chairman Mao Zedong to find a cure against malaria .
Historians say that you entered the later research project with other researchers, while many of his colleagues have been exhausted by both their work and the political struggles in progress that had swallowed China. Others have defended you during the Lasker controversy, however. She has maintained a low profile is.
With reporting by Dennis Normile, Kathleen McLaughlin, and Christina Larson.
* Update, October 5, 10:32 :. This story has been updated with new information about you and the comments of William Campbell and other researchers
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