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Nobel Prize for parasitic disease discoveries

By Michelle Roberts

Health editor, BBC News online

1 minute ago

 From the section Health

roundwormImage copyrightScience Photo Library

The Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine has been split two ways for groundbreaking work on parasitic diseases.

William C Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura found a new way of tackling infections caused by roundworm parasites.

Youyou Tu shares the prize for her discovery of a therapy against malaria.

The Nobel committee said the work had changed the lives of the hundreds of millions of people affected by these diseases.

The mosquito-borne disease malaria kills more than 450,000 people each year around the world, with billions more at risk of catching the infection.

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Parasitic worms affect a third of the world's population and cause a number of illnesses, including River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis.

Parasites

After decades of limited progress, the discovery of the two new drugs - Ivermectin for River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, and Artemisinin for malaria - was a game-changer.

MosquitoImage copyrightCDC

Efforts to eradicate malaria had been failing - older drugs were losing their potency - and the disease was on the rise.

Prof Youyou Tu, who in the 1960s had recently graduated from the Pharmacy Department at Beijing Medical University, looked to traditional herbal medicine to find a potential therapy.

She took an extract from the plant called Artemisia annua or Sweet wormwood and began testing it on malaria parasites.

The component, later called Artemisinin, was highly effective at killing them.

Youyou TuImage copyrightother

Image caption

Youyou Tu is Chief Professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Today, the drug is used around the world in combination with other malaria medicines.

In Africa alone, this is saving more than 100,000 lives every year.

Tu is the 13th woman to win this Nobel Prize.

She shares the award with two men who found a treatment for another parasite - roundworm.

Their discovery has led to the development of a drug called Ivermectin, which is so successful that roundworm diseases are on the verge of eradication.

Satoshi Ōmura, a Japanese microbiologist, focused on studying microbes in soils samples.

He selected a number of promising candidates that he though might work as a weapon against diseases.

Irish-born William Campbell, an expert in parasite biology working in the US, then explored these further and found one was remarkably efficient against parasites.

The active ingredient, Avermectin, went on to become a drug known as Ivermectin which is now used to treat River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis.

River blindness is an eye and skin disease that ultimately leads to blindness. Lymphatic filariasis, also known as elephantitis, causes painful swelling of the limbs. Both affect people living in some of the poorest countries in the world.

Dr Colin Sutherland, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it was immensely gratifying that the achievements for these "lesser known" but important diseases had been recognised.

"It's come out of the blue but we are very excited that the committee recognised the importance of parasitic diseases."

The Nobel committee said: "The two discoveries have provided humankind with powerful new means to combat these debilitating diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people annually

"The consequences in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immensurable.''