EDMONTON -- A former Edmontonian is part of a team of people awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.
Brenda Barton, a graduate of MacEwan University's Public Relations program, is now country director for the United Nations World Food Programme in Sri Lanka.
The WFP was chosen by the prize committee for "its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict."
The programme feeds 100 million people each year in some of the most dangerous areas of the world.
"It's amazing. It's humbling, it's exhilarating," Barton told CTV News Edmonton. "It really is recognition for the work that we're doing every day."
She said the organization's work in often invisible but is vital for people affected by drought, floods and civil war.
It is also an important part of staying healthy and fighting the spread of COVID-19.
Barton isn’t the only 2020 Nobel Prize winner with Edmonton connections. University of Alberta virologist Michael Houghton was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Houghton won the prestigious award for his discovery of the hepatitis C virus in 1989, along with colleagues Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo.
Thanks to the discovery, new tests were developed for blood donations that helped eliminate the virus from the blood donation supply by 1992. By 1996, annual reported transmission of the virus had dropped by more than 80 per cent.
Since then, antiviral therapies have been developed that will cure 95 per cent of hepatitis C carriers, making this the first chronic viral illness that can be cured.
He also developed a successful vaccine for the SARS virus in 2004.
Houghton was recruited to the U of A in 2010 as the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Virology as part of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology. In 2012, he and his team developed a vaccine for the virus that is known to cause cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease and liver cancer. About 20 to 30 per cent of people who suffer from hepatitis C develop severe liver disease. The vaccine is now in late pre-clinical testing.
“Michael Houghton’s achievement cannot be overstated,” said University of Alberta president Bill Flanagan. “Dr. Houghton has made this world a better place. As president of the University of Alberta, the institution where he has dedicated his time, I am thrilled that his work has been recognized in this way.”
