Japanese professors found substances for use as anti-AIDS drugs

Mr. Masanori Baba, 58, a professor at Kagoshima University, recently won an award from the International Association of Anti-Virus Research in Washington by discovering two representative agents for anti-AIDS drugs.

Mr. Baba received the Gertrude Elion Memorial Lecture Award, honoring scientist Gertrude Elion after she received the Nobel Prize in the field of physiology and medicine in 1988.

Clinical research to confirm the usefulness of anti-AIDS drugs using the substances found by Professor Baba is still ongoing. Mr. Baba said: 'I consider this a step forward and I will continue to do my best.'

Artwork: Topnews

Originally from Osaka, Professor Baba entered the Fukushima Medical University in Fukushima on the advice of his mother although he was not interested in medicine. Professor Baba decided to focus on studying how to fight and treat the disease after centuries of contact with many AIDS patients from Africa during the study in Belgium in 1986.

Mr. Baba was assigned to research AIDS while other colleagues were reluctant to study the disease that still contained so many mysteries. In Belgium, he ' was able to focus on experiments day and night.' In particular, he introduced representative substances into an inoculated virus and then checked if they had any concurrent effects. compare the obtained data.

In 1994, Mr. Baba was invited to join the Kagoshima University's Chronic Virus Center, where he conducted a series of studies with scientists from universities, pharmaceutical companies and technical circles. .

He shared: 'I have done a lot of experiments. I can't remember how many substances I've studied, thousands and maybe tens of thousands of substances. "

However, the professor said he still wanted to spend time with patients at the hospital. He said: 'Now I am studying the virus in the same way as I examine patients or find diseases.'

Professor Baba said his goal is to help patients fight and destroy viral diseases that are causing trouble for many patients in developing countries.