London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

The 2015 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology has been awarded to three scientists for their work on drug discoveries to treat parasitic diseases.

William C Campbell and Satoshi ÅŒmura were recognised for finding a new way of tackling infections caused by roundworm parasites, using a treatment called avermectin.

Youyou Tu shares the prize for her discovery of artemisinin - an effective treatment for malaria which is now used globally.

Commenting on the prize announcement, Sir Brian Greenwood, Professor of Clinical Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said:

"There has been a great deal of progress during the past decade in reducing the burden of parasitic infections in the developing world. Deaths from malaria, the most important protozoal infection, have been reduced by a half, and some very unpleasant tropical worm infections, such as onchocerciasis (river blindness), are approaching elimination.

"Much of this success has been achieved through the discovery and then widespread deployment through community health programmes of effective drugs. Thus, it is highly appropriate that this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology has been awarded jointly to Dr Youyou Tu for her discovery of the artemisins, now the mainstay for the treatment of malaria across the word, and to Dr William C Campbell and Dr Satoshi Omura for their discovery of avermectin, widely used in the treatment of many tropical worm infections.

"The fact that the Nobel Prize Committee has recognised the work of these distinguished scientists will be a major encouragement to those engaged in the development of new tools to fight the continuing problem of infections if the developing world where, despite recent successes, the development of drug resistance and the emergence of new infections means that there is still much to be done."

Dr Colin Sutherland, Reader in Parasitology at the School, said:

"We are very excited that the committee has recognised the importance of parasitic diseases that affect people with poor access to good healthcare.

"Nature is a source of a dazzling array of chemicals, some with marvellous properties, but the discovery of artemisinin was not recognised outside of China until the 1990s. It takes a long time for government policies to change and for stocks to be generated, so only in the last few years have African countries been able to roll out this drug to treat malaria on a large scale. It has now had a profound impact and changed nearly every country's malaria treatment protocol.

"Artemisinin is so widely used across the world that there's a risk of resistance problems. The writing is on the wall already. We probably have about five to 10 years of effective use of artemesinins before resistance becomes a problem, so we cannot become complacent - there's is still a lot of work to be done to find the next generation of drugs."

David Conway, Professor of Biology at the School, said:

"These discoveries are now more than 30 years old, but these drugs are still, today, the best two groups of compounds for antimalarial use, on the one hand, and antinematode worms and filariasis on the other."