2015 Nobel Goes to Natural-Based Medicine Researchers

This year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine laureates--William C. Cambell, Satoshi Omura, and Youyou Tu--have revolutionized the way that deadly bacteria are treated. Omura of Japan and U.S.-based scientist Cambell cooperated in the 1970’s on the creation of Avermectin, a drug which treats the roundworm parasite that causes river blindness and elephantiasis. The other half of the prize was granted to Chinese researcher Youyou Tu for her work on the antimalarial drug Artemisinin. All 2015 Nobel Prize recipients made their breakthroughs specifically in natural-based medicines. Omura discovered the strain of bacteria used in Avermectin from a soil sample he collected from a golf course in Tokyo. The active agent was eventually purified and modified by Cambell into a compound that effectively kills parasitic larvae. Similarly, Youyou Tu took suggestion from ancient Chinese texts and identified an extract from the herb Artemisia that was believed to have medicinal properties.  Concentrations of the Artemisia herb are now widely used in anti-malarial drugs.

Parasitic diseases are a major global health issue that generally affect the world's most impoverished populations. Parasitic worms in particular afflict nearly one-third of the world’s population. Before the discovery of Avermectin, elephantiasis had caused debilitation and stigmatism for more than 100 million individuals, and in some West African communities, about 50% of men over the age of 40 had lost their sight to river blindness. Malaria, even more deadly than the former afflictions, still claims more than 450,000 lives a year, and over 3.4 billion people risk contracting the disease. Tu’s anti-malarial drug is expected to reduce the mortality rate of the disease by more than 20% and save  more than 100,000 lives each year in Africa alone. In addition, Avermectin has now been distributed to over 450 million people, and in response elephantiasis and river blindness are quickly being eradicated. The Nobel Committee proclaimed that “the consequences [of the Nobel Laureates’ work] in terms of improved human health and reduced suffering are immeasurable.”