Winning discoveries

IN all the media coverage following the announcement of the winners of this year's Nobel prize for physiology or medicine, an interesting aspect has tended to be overlooked. The prize was awarded in two parts this year, for discoveries which have revolutionised the treatment of parasitic diseases affecting people in some of the world's poorest populations: to Youyou Tu, of China, for her discovery of the antimalarial drug artemisinin, and jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ō mura, for their discovery of the endectocide avermectin. As the Nobel Assembly explained, artemisinin has significantly reduced mortality rates for patients suffering from malaria, while derivatives of avermectin, most notably ivermectin, have radically lowered the incidence of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, as well as showing efficacy against other parasitic diseases. ‘These two discoveries,’ the assembly pointed out, ‘have provided humankind with powerful new means to combat these debilitating diseases that...
Source: Veterinary Record - Category: Veterinary Research Tags: Comment Source Type: research