MARVELLOUS MEDICINE

UNEXPECTED places scientists have found new drugs. This week: A Japanese golf course

THE drug ivermectin, which is used to treat parasitic worm infections such as river blindness, has saved millions of lives. It was derived from the compound avermectin, produced by a bacterium isolated on the fringes of a golf course in Kawana, near Tokyo, by biochemist Dr Satoshi Omura in the Seventies. He was later co-awarded a Nobel Prize.