Anyone who wins Germany’s Alexander Humboldt Prize, may be on the line
to win a Nobel Prize in his field. Most winners of the prestigious prize went
on to win the Nobel Prize. Nigeria’s Andrew Nok of Ahmadu Bello University,
Zaria received the Humboldt prize early this year for his work in finding a
cure
He is a recipient of the 2013 George Forster prize which is administered by
the prestigious Alexander Humboldt Foundation in Germany. His words “The
award I received in February this year is the George Forster prize,being
administered by the Alex Humboldt foundation in Germany. It is important
to say that the Humboldt foundation is one of the agencies in Germany
that prides itself in scouting for excellence all over the world, for people to
come to Germany to do research. I have been a Humboldt fellow as far
back as 1995/1997. But the George Forster prize is a special one, which the
board administers, and the prize is given strictly for excellence, and the
selection is quite a rigorous exercise.”
First African winner
He is the first black African to win the George Forster prize “My being
awarded this prize means that I am now very much visible for bigger prizes,
like the Nobel prize. Thats one very key and tremendous breakthrough in
this. Most of the Humboldt prize winners in recent past,have also emerged
as Nobel Prize winners, and one interesting thing is that quite a number of
them actually came for our investiture when we were given the prize.”
The Humboldt Foundation strives for excellence. The whole world is its
catchment area, and all the George Forster prizes could be given to a
single country. Or they could spread it as much as the rigours of the
exercise demand. It takes close to six months to get a full evaluation, says
Professor Nok. Again he comments on the prize “One key thing is to
recognise the uniqueness of the work that I have been doing on
Trypanosomiasis, and the effort to get a DNA vaccine in the treatment of
this disease, as well as other tropical diseases, like Malaria. This has
attracted sa a lot of attention, not just locally here, but also in the whole
world." He adds that Trypanosomiasis is a disease which affects great
numbers of poor people on the African continent, and it is one which
affects not just the human being, but also domestic animals and animals in
the wild.
Challenges
Now, he speaks on challenges he has faced while seeking a vaccine for
Trypanosomiasis. The major challenge has been that of funding,he says
“Much of the funding is usually from external agencies, and collaborations
we have with researchers in Germany, Japan, the United States and in
England.” He adds that there has been a constant power problem.
“We have tried to improve quite a number of things, especially in some of
the work that we do locally. One typical area has to do with power. If you
have to run a PCR, that is when you want to make several copies of a gene,
its supposed to run for one hour, and if after 50 minutes the light goes
off,you have lost everything, which means you have not done anything.
If you see the laboratory where we operate, you will see quite a number of
inverters which we operate to keep our refrigerators permanently on. “The
next difficulty is the fact that most of the reagents used in the
laboratories have to be sought from Europe or the USA.”
These are not things that you can get in Lagos or Abuja, he says. “They
are rare reagents, and they have to be flown in under special conditions.
Quite often than not, we have problems at the customs. They would actually
want to see what you have with you .But some of these things are not
supposed to be opened.and we have been able to develop some rapport with
officials at Kaduna and Abuja, and we have been able to bring in our
materials in good time.”
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