Nobel Prize: Three to split award in medicine for discoveries of tropical disease drugs
Health
Nobel Prize: Three to split award in medicine for discoveries of tropical disease drugs
Three scientists — from the U.S., Japan and China — won the Nobel Prize in medicine today for discovering drugs to fight malaria and other tropical diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people every year. Youyou Tu — the first Chinese medicine laureate — will share the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000) award with Japanese microbiologist Satoshi Omura and William C. Campbell, an Irish-born U.S. scientist.
The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immeasurable.
The Nobel Prize committee
Tu was celebrated for discovering artemisinin, a drug that is now the primary treatment against malaria, saving millions of lives worldwide. Inspired by Chinese traditional medicine, she made her discovery while working on a malaria project for the Chinese military. The other two winners, Omura and Campbell, discovered another drug, avermectin, whose derivatives have helped fight diseases caused by parasitic worms that affect millions of people in Africa and Asia. The Nobel committee said the winners, who are all in their 80s and made their breakthroughs in the 1970s and ‘80s, had given humankind powerful tools to combat debilitating diseases.
I have learned so much from microorganisms and I have depended on them, so I would much rather give the prize to microorganisms.
Satoshi Omura
