Right patient, right diagnosis, right treatment!

Abstract

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine for drugs to fight malaria and other tropical diseases, and in Chemistry for fundamental contributions towards understanding DNA repair and maintaining of genomic integrity in cells, highlights the interdisciplinary approach for maximizing benefits of contemporary science to mankind. The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to William Campbell Ph.D., born in Ireland and migrated to US; Satoshi Omura, Ph.D., from Japan, and Youyou Tu, the first Chinese Nobel laureate. The Nobel laureates – Dr. Campbell and Dr. Omura were cited for their discovery of Avermecitin, derivatives of the drug responsible for decreasing incidence of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis affecting millions in Asia and Africa. Ms. Tu's intensive efforts led to the active compound from the herbal Chinese sweet wormwood plant, giving us the antimalarial drug artemisinin, currently the first line drug for malaria affecting 50% of global population. The Chemistry Nobel acknowledged three scientists for their research in DNA repair, for their intensive work on mapping the process at a molecular level and providing insights into cell functioning and maintenance of genomic stability. The Nobel laureates were Dr. Thomas Lindahl, Ph.D., Francis Crick Institute, London, for his discoveries in base excision repair; Dr. Paul Modrich, Ph.D., Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Duke University School of Medicine, North Carolina, USA, for the mismatch repair pathway; and Dr. Aziz Sancar, M.D., Ph.D., at the University of North Carolina, USA, for nucleotide excision pathway. The understanding of DNA repair mechanisms in the cells is a breakthrough in understanding how cancer develops and furthers treatment of cancer and also several diseases, much needed for better health management. Despite the tremendous advances in technology, particularly biotechnology, information technology and imaging technology, cancer development, Dhananjaya Saranath and Aparna Khanna