William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura and Youyou Tu win Nobel prize in medicine
Ian Sample Science editor-Monday 5 October 2015Campbell and Ōmura win for their work on a therapy against roundworm, sharing the prize with Tu for her work on a therapy against malaria
Three scientists from Ireland, Japan and China have won the Nobel prize in medicine for discoveries that helped doctors fight malaria and infections caused by roundworm parasites.
Youyou Tu discovered one of the most effective treatments for malaria while working on a secret military project during China’s Cultural Revolution.
The 84-year-old pharmacologist was awarded half of the prestigious 8m Swedish kronor (£631,000) prize for her discovery of artemisinin, a drug that proved to be an improvement on chloroquine, which had become far less effective as the malaria parasites developed resistance.
Two other researchers, 80-year-old Satoshi Ōmura, an expert in soil microbes at Kitasato University, and William Campbell, an Irish-born parasitologist at Drew University in New Jersey, share the other half of the prize, for the discovery of avermectin, a treatment for roundworm parasites.
Together, the scientists have transformed the lives of millions of people in the developing world, where parasitic diseases that cause illness and death are most rife.
