October | Monday | 05, 2015 :: The Nobel Prize for medicine has been jointly awarded to three scientists, William Campbell of Ireland, Satoshi Omura of Japan & Youyou Tu of China for their work on parasitic diseases.
William Campbell of Ireland and Satoshi Omura of Japan, discovered a new drug to treat infections caused by roundworm parasites and China’s Youyou Tu, used traditional herbal medicine to find a new kind of antimalarial agent.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the fields of life sciences and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will. Nobel was personally interested in experimental physiology and wanted to establish a prize for progress through scientific discoveries in laboratories. The Nobel prize is presented to the recipient(s) at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel’s death, along with a diploma and a certificate for the monetary award. The front side of the medal provides the same profile of Alfred Nobel as depicted on the medals for Physics, Chemistry, and Literature; its reverse side is unique to this medal.