From left to right:
Youyou Tu, Satoshi Omura, William C. Campbell
William C. Campbell, from Drew University – Madison NJ, was among the three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering “therapies that have revolutionized the treatment of some of the most devastating parasitic diseases,” the Nobel committee announced on Monday.
William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura were awarded one half jointly for their discoveries regarding a therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites. Youyou Tu was awarded the other half for her discoveries concerning Malaria therapy.
Parasitic worms afflict a third of the world’s population, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease caused by single-cell parasites that invade red blood cells, kills more than 450,000 people a year, most of them children. “After decades of limited progress in developing durable therapies for parasitic diseases, the discoveries by this year’s laureates radically changed the situation,” the committee said.
Dr. Campbell, who was born in 1930 in Ramelton, Ireland, worked for decades at the Merck Institute. He is now a research fellow emeritus at Drew University in Madison, N.J. Dr. Omura, who was born in 1935 in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, is a professor emeritus at Kitasato University in Tokyo. Dr. Tu, born in 1930 in China, has been a scholar at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, now known as the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, since 1965.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinkska Instituet posted this release.
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