Link to the announcement
They all found medicines for infectious diseases. Drs. Campbell and Omura found a medicine for parasite disease, and Dr. Tu found a medicine for Malaria.
Pretty easy to see the reasoning, eh? Actually, Japanese media were surprised by the choice. As usual, they played the annual Nobel Prize prediction game during September, but no one predicted Dr. Omura. They were listing people whose works looked "sexier", so to speak.
The Nobel prize is the most prestigious prize for scientists.There were even studies (maybe industry joke) regarding "how to get the Nobel Prize for Medicine".
According to what I heard, you need to discover;
(i) New Concept that shift paradigm ("Jumping genes""DNA double helix"), or
(ii) New Object or Molecule (Novel medicine, "artificial stem cell (iPS cells)"), or
(iii) New Method that greatly helped science ("Polymerase chain reaction")
Then, you got to keep contributing to the field as a leader. Also, you have to live long.
Dr. Omura's work is impressive, yet it was likely to be overlooked by scientists who value academic, mechanistic or conceptual novelties. His work was much more groundwork. He and his team collected mud samples from everywhere, cultivated microorganisms in the mud, isolated chemicals the microorganisms produce, and identified various biological activities of the chemicals.
Among the chemicals was the anti-parasitic drug. The drug Avermectin proved to be a broad spectrum anti-parasitic and saved many people (over 200 million people!) and animals. It worked. It was useful.
In fact, he found many more drugs useful to us, too. I have used research reagents Staurosporin and Lactacystin (that they found) in the lab. I had no idea who originally discovered them, to be honest.
Dr. Tu is the first Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine winner from Mainland China. She re-discovered the anti-malaria drug from a herb used in traditional Chinese medicine. It should mean much for the Chinese. And it is easy to see the usefulness of anti-malaria medication.
So, this year, the Prize went to science with usefulness.
Probably I should say the Nobel Prize went to the work that helped humankind in a very straightforward manner.
Business people say that, "to make money, you got to help others, and if you help enough people, you will be rich." This year's Nobel Prize is the science version of the business saying.
[A figure from the press release. They isolated chemicals from soil-dwelling microorganisms]
The medicines are from the nature. People who like and believe in "all natural" would be happy, too.
