The Irish Society for Parasitology (ISP) today announced that its postgraduate award will be renamed in honour of Prof William Campbell, a Trinity alumnus and Nobel Laureate.
Campbell, a former zoology student at Trinity, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2015 for his work on a parasitic disease called river blindness. The Donegal native developed a drug called Ivermectin which saved millions of people across the African continent from the disease.
In a statement on the ISP website, President Prof John P Dalton said: “I am delighted to announced that in honour of our Nobel Laureate Prof. William C. Campbell that the ISP Postgraduate Award will now be named ‘The Prof. William C. Campbell Postgraduate Award’.”
“We thank Prof. Campbell for approving this, are very proud of his achievement and also wish him a very happy 90th Birthday.”
Calls for the Prof William C Campbell Postgraduate award will be announced in the coming weeks.
Campbell’s work on river blindness led to the creation of a new class of drugs used to treat parasites.
From 1990 to 2010, Campbell worked as a research fellow at Drew University where he taught parasitology. In 2002, Campbell was welcomed into the United States National Academy of Sciences.
On a visit to Trinity in 2017, Campbell donated money to sponsor three prizes in the Department of Zoology for the best undergraduate research project, the best undergraduate student and the best postgraduate teacher.
Founded in 1993, ISP hosts a yearly scientific meeting and AGM, offering scientists in the parasitology community to meet and share research.
