UW-Madison alumnus William C. Campbell has been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Monday for his part in a medical discovery.
Campbell, who received both his master’s and doctorate from UW-Madison, and fellow researcher Satoshi Omura discovered the drug avermectin, earlier versions of which of worked to dramatically decrease various tropical diseases, according to a university release.
Tens of millions of people in tropical regions have been affected by river blindness and elephantiasis, a severe swelling of the limbs; the scientists’ discovery works to lessen these effects.
Campbell and Omura studied various cell cultures of the soil bacterium Streptomyces, realizing that a piece of one of the cultures resisted parasites in both domestic and farm animals, according to the release.
The researchers then modified the drug in 1982 into its current form, ivermectin, to work in humans, which limits the growth of microscopic parasitic larvae that cause potentially fatal diseases in the tropics.
UW-Madison pathobiological sciences professor Tim Yoshino said river blindness is “nearly eradicated,” due to Campbell’s discoveries and the Carter Center, which worked with the drug manufacturer Merck to distribute over 225 million free doses of ivermectin.
"Ivermectin is absolutely critical to the effort to control these diseases and has helped millions of people in the developing world," UW-Madison parasitologist Bruce Christensen said in the release. “The populations that needed this drug the most are in some of the most destitute regions of the world."
