EPO honours top inventors in Prague ceremony
The inventors of new drugs for malaria and leukaemia, a pioneer of solar technology research and the creator of a series of ingenious adaptations to heat exchangers were all honoured on 28 April at the European Inventor of the Year 2009 awards in Prague, Czech Republic. The awards have four categories: lifetime achievement; SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises)/research; industry; and non-European countries. The Lifetime Achievement award went to Adolf Goetzberger for his work on the advancement of solar energy. The 80-year-old German scientist pioneered solar technology research and founded Europe's largest research institute for solar energy. Because of his work, solar energy is now a thriving industry worth billions of euros. The award for SMEs/Research was won by French inventor Joseph Le Mer for his work in heating systems. He has created a range of heat exchangers with a single tube design which are cheap to make, light and flexible. They are also environmentally friendly as they are energy efficient to a far higher level than the current industry standard. Joseph Le Mer's inventions have helped turn the small French SME Giannoni-France, which funded his research, into a company with 700 employees and an annual turnover of EUR 135 million. The Industry award went to medicinal chemist Jürg Zimmermann from Switzerland, who, along with his US colleague, the oncologist Brian Druker, has developed a drug to combat chronic myelogenous leukaemia, once considered one of the most deadly of cancers and which affected both adults and young children. Leukaemia is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow in which white blood cells multiply. More than 250,000 people are diagnosed with it every year and until now treatment has usually involved painful radiation therapy and chemotherapy that often attacked healthy cells as well as cancerous ones. Remission rates were also low. Zimmermann and Druker's new drug, called Glivec, is now being manufactured by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, and has a 98% remission rate. Glivec is also gentler than previous treatments for chronic myelogenous leukaemia with fewer than 5% of patients experiencing serious side effects, a breakthrough that could revolutionise treatments for leukaemia. In the category of Non-European Countries the award went to another scientist battling a deadly disease - this time malaria, which kills millions of people a year in developing countries. Professor Yiqing Zhou, along with colleagues at the Microbiology and Epidemiology Institute at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing, used the active component of the herb Artemisia annua (sweet wormwood) and combined it with a modern anti-malaria drug called benflumetol. The resulting drug, marketed as Coartem, is cheap to manufacture and very effective; it has been estimated to have already saved over 450,000 lives. Czech President Václav Klaus, said during the awards ceremony, 'I am very pleased that this event is taking place concurrently with the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. It is a beautiful mission to be an inventor in technology, and they must be rewarded. They are moving our society forward.' The awards are a joint initiative of the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Commission and celebrate inventions that have had a particularly positive effect on people's lives or on the economy. The winners are selected by an independent jury. Alison Brimelow, president of the EPO said at the ceremony, 'The EPO is very keen to maintain Europe as a centre of technology, and these awards celebrate all innovators who make a real contribution to growth and innovation, particularly in hard times.'
Countries
Czechia