This is a very pretty Nobel Prize for medicine, marked the South Seal. And the fight against parasitic infections but also against malaria. “The Nobel prize this year have developed therapies that have revolutionized the treatment of some of the most devastating parasitic disease,” said the Nobel committee at the Karolinska Institute.
These are three researchers from around the world: William Campbell, born in Ireland, Satoshi Omura Japanese and Chinese Tu Youyou. They were rewarded for “their work on a new treatment against infections caused by worms,” while Tu Youyou was recognized for “discoveries concerning new therapy against malaria” . William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura have discovered the Avermectin, whose pharmacological derivatives have dramatically decreased the prevalence of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, while showing “effectiveness against a number of more most other parasitic diseases. “
ancient texts and folk remedies
As for Tu Youyou, 84 years old, she had long been tipped to receive the award. She is the 12 th woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine since the price in 1901. Tu Youyou, it’s a great story. And the symbol of a successful blend between ancestral and modern medicine.
She studied at Beijing Medical University, before training on the theories of traditional Chinese medicine for Western experts. With the knowledge gained, she was able to achieve results in many areas, such as medicinal chemistry, traditional Chinese medicine treatment techniques – in particular, relying on modern scientific methods. For that, she combined the ancient Chinese texts and folk remedies, collecting nearly 2000 ‘remedies’ potential from which his team made 380 plant extracts.
A absinthe-based
The contemporary history of artemisinin begins in the 70s during the Vietnam War when the North Vietnamese army has built an entire underground network. As these tunnels recover all rainwater, Anopheles (a type of mosquito) malaria carriers breed in stagnant water it. The health problem has reached such proportions that the North Vietnamese army will lose more soldiers by malaria than by arms.
The North Vietnamese then turned to China to try to find a solution. And it was in 1972 that Tu Youyou and her team uncover a antimalarial drug completely new structure, artemisinin. One of these extracts from the plant wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) was first shown promise in mice. Inspired by an old document, his team has gradually changed the process of extracting the substance to render it more effective before isolating the early 70s, the active ingredient in wormwood, to Read artemisinin.
Today, artemisinin has become the most effective and safest treatment against malaria, especially a cheap product. Remember that even though malaria is in sharp decline on the planet thanks to the action of the Global Fund, the disease still affects nearly 200 million people a year and kills more than 500,000, mainly African children.
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