2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to William C. Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura and Tu Youyou. The prize was announced by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm on 5 October 2015.

The citation

Half of the prize goes jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura "for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites". Half of the prize goes to Tu Youyou "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria".

The laureates

William C. Campbell was born in 1930 in Ramelton, Ireland, and is affiliated with Drew University, Madison. Satoshi Ōmura was born in 1935 in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, and is affiliated with Kitasato University, Tokyo. Tu Youyou was born in 1930 in Zhejiang Ningbo, China, and is affiliated with China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing.

Why it matters

Campbell and Omura discovered avermectin, from which ivermectin was developed to treat river blindness, and Tu discovered artemisinin, which has saved millions of lives from malaria.

The prize

The prize is worth 8 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.