Antimicrobiols win Nobel Prize for Medicine while DNA repair wins Nobel for Chemistry

[JaffaOrange]

[quote=Nature News]Three scientists who developed therapies against parasitic infections have won this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The winners are: William C. Campbell, a microbiologist at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey; Satoshi Ōmura, a microbiologist at Kitasato University in Japan; and Youyou Tu, a pharmacologist at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing.

In the 1970s, Campbell and Ōmura discovered a class of compounds, called avermectins, that kill parasitic roundworms that cause infections such as river blindness and lymphatic filariasis. The most potent of these was released onto the market in 1981 as the drug ivermectin.

Tu, who won a Lasker prize in 2011, developed the antimalarial drug artemisinin in the late 1960s and 1970s. She is the first China-based scientist to win a science Nobel. “This certainly is fantastic news for China. We expect more to come in the future,” says Wei Yang, president of the nation’s main research-funding agency, the National Natural Science Foundation of China[/quote]

[url]http://www.nature.com/news/anti-parasite-drugs-sweep-nobel-prize-in-medicine-2015-1.18507[/url]

[quote=Nature News]The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three researchers for their work on DNA repair.

Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar “mapped, at a molecular level, how cells repair damaged DNA and safeguard the genetic information”, says the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, which awards the prize.[/quote]

[url]http://www.nature.com/news/dna-repair-sleuths-win-chemistry-nobel-1.18515[/url]

It's a few days late but I didn't see any articles on these here. While not as broadly appreciable as the Nobel Peace Prize, I reckon that these two areas are somewhat less esoteric than this years Physics prize.

As a medicinal chemist, I'm stoked about the Medicine prize recognising natural product med chem. There are also good stories in there such as how industry (on rare occasion) can really help do a lot of good for the world as well as how science can triumph in turbulent situations (and the Cultural Revolution in China is a doozy).

The Chemistry prize recognises the work done to understand how DNA-based life can even exist despite the fragility of the massive molecule. Cue the inevitable arguments about how the Chemistry prize isn't going the chemistry (because the molecules are too big?).

Both Prizes are very well deserved. The only bugbear I have is that some other people/work should have been recognised this year if only because they are on death's door and Nobel prizes aren't given posthumously. Carl Djerassi passing away before he was recognised should have been a massive wake up alarm.

[LoneWolf_Recon]

Holy fuck, full mapping of how genetic repair occurs? Could that mean we could research some sort of procedure to revert the damage caused by radiation on DNA? Or even better, turn it up to 11 to have the repair mechanisms mitigate radiation damage alot faster than normal?

[Awesomecaek]

[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;48877403]Holy fuck, full mapping of how genetic repair occurs? Could that mean we could research some sort of procedure to revert the damage caused by radiation on DNA? Or even better, turn it up to 11 to have the repair mechanisms mitigate radiation damage alot faster than normal?[/QUOTE]

Well, I guess the same way knowing Mars is up there allowed us to research the possibilities of getting to it.

It's kinda necessary requirement but doesn't exactly put is within reach of anything.