Nobel Prize in medicine awarded for breakthroughs against malaria, parasites
STOCKHOLM -- Three scientists from Ireland, Japan and China won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering drugs against malaria and other parasitic diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people every year.
The Nobel judges in Stockholm awarded the prestigious prize to Irish-born William Campbell, Satoshi Omura of Japan and Tu Youyou - the first-ever Chinese medicine laureate.
Campbell and Omura were cited for discovering avermectin, derivatives of which have helped lower the incidence of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, two diseases caused by parasitic worms that affect millions of people in Africa and Asia.
Tu discovered artemisinin, a drug that has helped significantly reduce the mortality rates of malaria patients.
"The two discoveries have provided humankind with powerful new means to combat these debilitating diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people annually," the committee said. "The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immeasurable."
River blindness is an eye and skin disease that ultimately leads to blindness. About 90 percent of the disease occurs in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
Lymphatic filariasis can lead to swelling of the limbs and genitals, called elephantiasis, and it's primarily a threat in Africa and Asia. The WHO says 120 million people are infected with the disease, without about 40 million disfigured and incapacitated.
Campbell is a research fellow emeritus at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Omura, 80, is a professor emeritus at Kitasato University in Japan and is from the central prefecture of Yamanashi. Tu, 84, is chief professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Omura isolated new strains of Streptomyces bacteria and cultured them so that they could be analyzed for their impact against harmful microorganisms, the Nobel committee said.
Campbell showed that one of those cultures was "remarkably efficient" against parasites in animals. The bioactive agent was purified and modified to a compound that effectively killed parasitic larvae, leading to the discovery of new class of drugs.
Campbell, a retired scientist who spent 33 years at pharmaceutical company Merck and now lives in North Andover, Massachusetts, said the award came as a huge surprise.
"It was a great team effort by the people at Merck and Company," Campbell said.
Omura wondered whether he deserved the prize.
"I have learned so much from microorganisms and I have depended on them, so I would much rather give the prize to microorganisms," Omura told Japanese broadcaster NHK.
He later said that the drug was developed from substance taken from microbe contained in the soil sample at a golf course near Tokyo. Omura said he always carries around a plastic bag in his wallet so he can collect soil samples.
Tu turned to herbal medicine to discover a new anti-malarial agent, artemisinin (pronounced ar-tuh-MIHS'-ihn-ihn), that was highly effective against malaria, a disease that was on the rise in the 1960s, the committee said.
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The last time a Chinese citizen won a Nobel was in 2012, when Mo Yan got the literature award. But China has been yearning for a Nobel Prize in science. This was the first Nobel Prize given to a Chinese scientist for work carried out within China.
A member of the Nobel Prize committee says the work of the 2015 medicine laureates could help eliminate diseases affecting 3.4 billion people.
Jan Andersson says that as a result of the laureates' discoveries, the World Health Organization now has a plan aimed at eradicating river blindness in the 31 countries where the disease is endemic by 2025. He says the WHO also hopes to eradicate elephantiasis in 61 of the 81 countries affected by 2020.
He says that partly as a result of Tu Youyou's discovery, the mortality from malaria has been reduced by 50 percent in the last 10 years, and the number of infections has been cut by 40 percent. Andersson says the WHO now hopes to eliminate malaria in 35 countries by 2035.
The medicine award was the first Nobel Prize to be announced. The winners of the physics, chemistry and peace prizes are set to be announced later this week. The economics prize will be announced next Monday. No date has been set yet for the literature prize, but it is expected to be announced on Thursday.
The winners will share the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000) prize money with one half going to Campbell and Omura, and the other to Tu. Each winner will also get a diploma and a gold medal at the annual award ceremony on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel.
Last year's medicine award went to three scientists who discovered the brain's inner navigation system.