Two winners of the Prince Mahidol Award 2014 will receive awards from Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn at the Grand Palace today.
The winners are professor Akira Endo, the Japanese president of Biopharm Research Laboratories, Inc, and professor Donald A Henderson, an American scholar at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. Both joined a press conference yesterday at Siriraj Hospital.
Mr Endo, who won the award in the medical field, discovered the first anti-cholesterol statin (a drug) in the 1970s by isolating a substance from fungus that can reduce cholesterol levels in the blood.
His findings led to the development of medicines for treating cardiovascular diseases which saved millions of lives worldwide.
Mr Endo said yesterday that his work was inspired by studying in New York in the 1950s where he saw many elderly people with heart disease. Meanwhile, the death rate of cerebrovascular disease among Japanese was three times higher than cancer.
When he returned to Japan, he began research on 6,000 types of fungi and finally discovered the anti-cholesterol statin.
The award winner in the public health field, Dr Henderson led the World Health Organisation's Global Smallpox Eradication Campaign from 1966 to 1977 which helped eradicate the disease from the world.
The campaign stepped up global efforts to run mass vaccination and intensive surveillance programmes until the last case was reported in Somalia. Dr Henderson said the campaign showed the world that smallpox could be wiped out.
Both winners said they felt honoured to receive the award.
They were among 59 nominees from 25 countries nominated for the award.