Parasitology may not be the most glamorous of scientific disciplines; roundworms do not grab the public’s attention in quite the same way as, for example, an image of a galaxy far far away – though they may share a similar shape (have a look at the image above). Despite this “drawback”, parasites have successfully insinuated themselves into all walks of life on Earth. And by ‘insinuated’ I mean they have been the bane of human and animal life as, by definition, parasites take from their hosts and leave behind death, disease and (socioecomic) destruction.
It is therefore not surprising then that the Nobel Prize has been awarded to several parasitologists over the years – the first being awarded to Ronald Ross in 1902 for his work on malaria – and that this year’s Prize recognises three scientists who have developed ‘parasite-fighting’ therapeutics.
Irish-born parasitologist Professor William C Campbell and Japanese biochemist Professor Satoshi Ōmura are recognised for their work on Avermectins and in particular Ivermectin. Avermectin compounds are derived fromStreptomyces avermitilis –通常在土壤中发现的细菌物种。伊维菌素是一种广谱抗寄生虫化合物，是平敏蛋白的衍生物，主要用于治疗河流，这是由寄生圆虫引起的Onchocerca volvulus,和淋巴丝虫病.Globally, it is estimated that 25 million people are infected withO. volvulus1.2亿人有感染的风险（谁），因此这使您了解了伊维菌素的重要性。
At BugBitten, we have described the impact of malaria in severalblogsrecently, but its negative impact cannot be stressed enough. Therefore, Professor Youyou Tu’s discovery of Artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin to treat malaria thoroughly deserves recognition in the form of the Nobel Prize.
Artemisinins are derived from the sweet wormwood plant (Artemisia Annua) and are the most rapid acting drugs againstPlasmodium falciparummalaria currently available. Sweet wormwood is not a stranger to medicine and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat fevers for hundreds of years.
Youyou Tu also has the distinction of being the first Chinese scientist to be awarded a Nobel Prize in medicine.
目前，世界卫生组织分别建议分别对河流失明和疟疾的治疗方法，建议这些化合物已成为两种毁灭性寄生虫学疾病。
Finally, I leave you with the bizarre (in my opinion) fact that Austrian physician Julius Wagner-Jauregg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1927 “for his discovery of thetherapeuticvalue of malaria inoculation in the treatment of dementia paralytica”. The technique was called malariotherapy and involved inoculating疟原虫into patients suffering from syphilis. Despite some good results, the technique was discontinued because the risk of death was too high.
评论