A research team of Japanese and American scientists won the Ig Nobel Prize in physiology Thursday for discovering that mammals are capable of breathing through their anuses, which they hope will help treat people with COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases.
The award for the team-of-11’s study, published in the journal Med in 2021, marks the 18th consecutive year that Japanese nationals have claimed the humorous prize, which is presented by the U.S. scientific magazine Annals of Improbable Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“First and foremost, thank you for believing (in) the potential of anus,” Takanori Takebe, a professor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University who was one of the researchers, said in English.
The Ig Nobel prize is an award given to “achievements so surprising that they make people laugh, then think,” and has several categories, including for peace, botany and medicine.
The winning team in physiology found that administering oxygenated liquid through the rectum into the intestines of pigs, rats and mice with respiratory diseases helped alleviate symptoms, which inspired a new treatment method for artificial respiration in humans.
The treatment “may serve as a transformative approach to respiratory failure patients” infected with COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the researchers said in the medical journal.
In June, EVA Therapeutics, founded by Takebe, began clinical trials to confirm its safety with the aim of commercializing it in 2028 in Japan and 2030 in the U.S.
Takebe said loaches, which can breathe through their intestines in low-oxygen environments, inspired his team and him to study whether mammals could do the same. His team wore loach hats when accepting their prize.
“In Japan, we have a very interesting creature called loaches that has a capacity to suck up oxygen from the butt. So, why we can’t do that? So, that was the question we started,” Takebe said.
Patients with respiratory failure are normally treated with ventilators and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO. But they are physically straining for the patients and difficult to handle for medical staff.
The treatment can also be used for extremely premature infants, Takebe said, adding that he hopes people will be made aware of the technology through the award.
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