Tropical disease expert wins top honour

Professor Alan Fairlamb, head of the Division of Biological Chemistry & Molecular Microbiology in the School of Life Sciences, has been awarded the prestigious Kitasato Microbial Chemistry Medal for his Outstanding Contribution to Biology.

The award, which was instituted in 1988 for "advanced research on bioactive compounds", was made to Professor Fairlamb by Professor Satoshi Omura, Director of the Kitasato Institute, Tokyo, Japan.

A world authority on tropical diseases, Professor Fairlamb first discovered the vital antioxidant "trypanothione" in parasitic trypanosomes in 1985, and has since identified it as one of the targets for several drugs currently used to treat sleeping sickness and Chagas' disease.

In 2004 he discovered that antimonial drugs used to treat Leishmaniasis also attack the antioxidant functions of trypanothione. From this Alan hopes that research on the parasite molecule "trypanothione", and enzymes that use trypanothione, will lead to a better and safer drug that will cure sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease and Leishmaniasis.

Commenting on the award, Professor Fairlamb said, "I am deeply honoured to receive this award and hope this will allow me to establish new international collaborations to find improved treatments for diseases such as African Sleeping Sickness."

Professor Fairlamb is also Chair of the World Health Organization / Tropical Disease Research Chemotherapy Portofolio Review Committee, responsible for drug discovery and development for AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease, schistosomiasis, onchocerciasis and filariasis.