The prestigious Florey Medal is an Australian award given to people contributing to biomedical researc. The award is named in honor of the Nobel Laureate Howard Florey.
This year, a Victorian scientist, professor Ruth Bishop has been presented with this medal as a recognition of her contribution in the discovery of one of the main causes of severe and sometimes fatal diarrhoea in children 40 years ago.
Professor Bishop, now in her 80s, has been honoured with this award for the discovery of rotavirus and the corresponding work she has done to develop a vaccine against this deadly virus.
This year, a Victorian scientist, professor Ruth Bishop has been presented with this medal as a recognition of her contribution in the discovery of one of the main causes of severe and sometimes fatal diarrhoea in children 40 years ago.
Professor
Ruth Bishop (front centre) discovered the rotavirus 40 years ago.
Professor Bishop, now in her 80s, has been honoured with this award for the discovery of rotavirus and the corresponding work she has done to develop a vaccine against this deadly virus.
The immunisation provided by this vaccine has prevented deaths around the world and has caused a
drastic reduction in the number of children in Australia admitted to hospital due to this virus.
Three thousand children are now hospitalised with rotavirus every year,
down from 10,000 before the vaccine was introduced in 2007. Dr. Bishop said that the invention of the electron microscope helped a lot in her work.
In this context, she said "It was like most scientific discoveries. You just follow the clues
that are there and try and assess the next thing to do. With me it was the
knowledge that most children admitted to hospital with acute gastro-enteritis
had no known cause. Put these two things together - a biopsy from a child with acute
gastroenteritis - looked at in the electron microscope and the first slice of
the first biopsy showed a new virus and our work was taken from there."
