Professor Direk Limmathurotsakul is Head of Microbiology at the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit (MORU), Professor of Epidemiology at the Faculty of Tropical Medicine (FTM), Mahidol University, and Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM), University of Oxford.
UNESCO recognised his work on melioidosis and AMR infections, and his development of methods, indicators and tools that use microbiological research and data to inform action at local, national and international levels.
Making melioidosis visible
Melioidosis is a frequently fatal infection caused by Burkholderia pseudomallei, a bacterium found in soil and water. Despite its severity, the disease remains overlooked in many countries.
By linking microbiology and hospital admission data from 110 public hospitals in Thailand, Professor Direk and colleagues showed that melioidosis caused more than 4,400 illnesses and over 1,200 deaths annually in Thailand. A later global modelling study estimated 165,000 cases and 89,000 deaths worldwide annually, including in countries where the disease had not previously been reported.
The evidence helped make the scale of melioidosis more visible to clinicians, researchers and policymakers, and informed an open-access global map used by the international melioidosis community.
Local data for local action
Professor Direk has applied the same principle to AMR: hospitals and countries need usable local evidence to decide where action is most urgently needed.
He led the development of AMASS, a free, open-access and offline tool that enables hospitals to analyse routinely collected microbiology and hospital admission data and generate their own AMR surveillance reports. The system is designed so that hospitals can work with their own data locally, without transferring sensitive patient information.
His work also addresses the systems around microbiology: routine use of diagnostic services, connections between laboratory and hospital data, and collaboration with healthcare workers and policymakers so that evidence can guide surveillance, treatment and prevention.
From evidence to action
Working with Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health and hospitals across the country, Professor Direk has helped translate microbiological evidence into changes in policy and practice. The tools and approaches developed through this work are also being used and adapted in other countries.
The prize was presented at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 16 July 2026 during the 2026 Global Conference of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development.