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BSS-27
ICDDR,B-AWARD
Former icddr,b scientist receives Golden Goose Award
DHAKA, Sept 30, 2019 (BSS) – Former icddr,b scientist Prof David B Sachar has been awarded with Golden Goose Award 2019 by the ‘American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)’ at the Library of Congress, Washington, USA.
The annual award celebrates groundbreaking, federally funded basic research that has had a significant impact on human life, scientific advances, and societal needs, said a press release.
Prof Sachar was recognised for his over fifty years old research “The Frog Skin That Saved 50 Million Lives” conducted in Dhaka (then Dacca, East Pakistan) that led to the development of oral rehydration therapy by Dr David Nalin and Dr Richard A Cash.
In the 1960s, as a young Harvard-trained doctor and researcher of intestine mechanisms David Sachar joined Cholera Research Laboratory (CRL) in the East Pakistan (now icddr,b, also known as International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh), which was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control.
In 1966, Prof Sachar started measuring electric potentials across frog skins while he was in Prof. Hans Ussing’s laboratory in Copenhagen, which led him to develop an ingenious but simple method for measuring electric potential in the intact human intestine. He used it to test the function of patients’ intestinal sodium transport during the course of cholera.
icddr,b Executive Director Prof John D Clemens who is also a scientist, has been dedicating his scientific career in the development, evaluation, and introduction of the world’s only safe, effective, and affordable oral cholera vaccines (OCVs), appreciated the incredible work of Prof Sachar that led him to this prestigious award after 53 years of his research.
He said “It was one of the most important breakthroughs that led the development of oral rehydration solution. However, the recognition even though comes after 53 years is indeed another feather in the cap of icddr,b’s success.”
BSS/PR/DH/SMM/1759 HRS