The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Harvey Alter , Michael Houghton , and Charles Rice for their discovery of hepatitis C — a pathogen responsible for for continuing liver diseases .
“ This year ’s Nobel Prize is awarded to three scientist who have made a critical share to the fight against descent - hold hepatitis , a major world wellness problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in the great unwashed around the human race , ” declared the Norwegian Nobel Committee in astatementissued today .
By discovering and characterizing the elusive hepatitis C virus , the trio go under the groundwork for in effect treatments , which “ have spare millions of life , ” harmonize to the Nobel Committee .
Depictions of Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton, and Charles Rice.Image: Niklas Elmehed/Nobel Media
Hepatitis C is a liver disease because of the bloodborne hepatitis C computer virus . Exposure to contaminated injection needles remain the basal musical mode of transmission , but it can spread through other practice or activities in which there ’s pic to blood . The World Health Organizationsaysaround 71 million mass have a continuing hepatitis C computer virus infection , a significant part of whom will develop cirrhosis or liver Crab . In 2016 , the WHO estimated that closely 400,000 people died from complications of the virus . There ’s no effective vaccinum for hepatitis C , but antiviral medications can bring around upwardly of 95 % of cases .
https://gizmodo.com/theres-a-cure-for-hepatitis-c-but-insurance-companies-1826638799
virologist had already discovered hepatitis A ( which spreads through polluted water system or food ) and hepatitis B ( which spreads via line of descent ) by the time hepatitis C was identify . In the 1970s , Harvey Alter from the U.S. National Institutes of Health , along with his workfellow , found a distinctive frame of continuing viral hepatitis while studying a liver disease associate to blood transfusion , which they dubbed “ non - A , non - B hepatitis . ” The exact computer virus creditworthy for the disease , however , remained a mystery for over a decennary .
There are two main forms of hepatitis virus, one that spreads through food and water (type A) and two kinds that are blood-borne (types B and C).Image: Nobel Media
In the 1980s , Michael Houghton , now at the University of Alberta , was work at Chiron Corporation , where he pieced together DNA fragment found in the line of infected Pan troglodytes . Some of this deoxyribonucleic acid go to the ape , but he and his colleagues hop to find evidence of the unrecognized virus , which they did through the identification of associated antibodies . The novel RNA virus was ascribe to the Flavivirus family and named the hepatitis C virus .
Shortly after , a team led by Charles Rice from the Washington University in St. Louis evince that the newly detected computer virus was responsible for causing the symptoms associated with the disease . Rice , who used a genetic technique to demonstrate the virus ’s function in causing liver disease , is now at Rockefeller University .
The work of Alter , Houghton , and Rice put the stage for the tender line of descent tests that have attend to to practically eliminate contaminated blood transfusions around the mankind , as well as the rapid ontogeny of antiviral drug to treat the disease . The WHO has a statedgoalof eradicating hepatitis C by 2030 — an ambitious target , but one made potential by the pioneering oeuvre of this trio .
An effective cure for hepatitis C became available in the preceding decade , but , as Gizmodo reported in 2018 , insurance companiesrefuse to cover itfor many patients .
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