Nok Wins Science Prize, Nine Make Literature Longlist
PROFESSOR Andrew Jonathan Nok has won this year's Nigeria Prize for Science for his seminal work in discovering the gene responsible for the creation of Sialidase (SD), an enzyme which causes sleeping sickness (Trypanosomiasis).
His work will form the baseline for developing DNA based vaccines against Trypanosoma. The Committee for The Nigeria Prize for Science in awarding the prize to Nok, noted that his submission "has the potential of leading to the development of a scientifically elegant and sophisticated solution to a predominantly African problem."
In 2006, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that some sixty million people who live mainly in rural parts of East, West and Central Africa are at risk of contracting sleeping sickness.
Nok will be honoured at the Nigeria LNG Limited's sponsored Grand Award Night on 10th October this year, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja.
A Fellow of The Nigerian Academy of Science, Nok whose effort outclassed 25 other entries in wide-ranging fields such as engineering, agriculture, biology and chemistry, is a Professor of Biochemistry and Dean of the Faculty Science at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and has supervised over 35 post-graduate theses.
In the same vein, nine writers are within striking distance for the prize according to the Nigerian Academy of Letters.
A poet, Mr. Remi Raji, was disqualified for including in his entry; Gather my blood and Rivers of Song, previously published poems.
The judges frowned at the practice of rehashing previous works for literary prizes, saying it should be discouraged.
The authors are Omo Uwaifo for Litany; Ahmed Maiwada for Fossils; Lindsay Barrett for A Memory of Rivers; Odoh Diego Okenyodo for From a Poem to its Creator; Hyginus Ekwuazi for Love Apart; Musa Idris Okpanachi for The Eaters of the Living; Ademola Dasylva for Songs of Odamolugbe; Nengi Josef Ilagha for January Gestures; G'ebinyo Ogbowei for Song of a Dying River. There were 163 entries this year.
Noteworthy in the shortlist released by committee is Uwaifo, who in the first edition of the Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2004, received honourable mention for his work of prose fiction, Fattening House.
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