19 October 2005
Award of Prestigious Japanese Medal
Professor Alan Fairlamb of the University of Dundee 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, at a conference to mark the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the chemical Avermectin by Professor Omura and his team.
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 Head of the Division of Biological Chemistry & Molecular Microbiology in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee. Alan 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.
A derivative of Avermectin, developed by Merck, Sharpe and Dohme (ivermectin or Mectizan) has become one of the world's most potent and multi-purpose antiparasitic drugs ever developed. It is used to treat two highly devastating human diseases, River Blindness and Elephantiasis, which afflict some of the world's poorest communities in Africa, Asia and South America, as well as treating other parasitic diseases affecting billions of livestock and pets worldwide.
Notes to Editor
Dundee boasts one of the leading research divisions in Europe studying African sleeping sickness, Chagas' disease, Leishmaniasis and malaria, based in the Division of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Microbiology in the Wellcome Trust Biocentre. This research will be enhanced in the newly built Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (CIR). The CIR houses a new purpose-built Division of Drug Development housing world-class facilities in medicinal and synthetic organic chemistry, computational chemistry and compound screening laboratories, aimed at developing new, safer and more effective drug therapies for the treatment of global parasitic diseases as well as new treatments for diabetes, cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Avermectin is a chemical produced by a soil micro-organism found only on a golf course in the Kawana District of Itoh City, Japan that was discovered by a team led by Dr Satoshi Omura, Director of the Kitasato Institute, working jointly with Merck & Co Inc, USA, who distribute the drug free of charge to those who need it. The Mectizan Donation Programme is one of the finest public health success stories of the past century, whose overall goal is to eliminate River Blindness as a public health problem by 2010.
For more information contact:
Roddy Isles,
Head of Press
Tel: 01382 344910,
out of hours: 07968298585,
Email: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk | 
