Tu Youyou

Tu Youyou in 1950s

Tu Youyou (Chinese: 屠呦呦; born 30 December 1930) is a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and malariologist who discovered artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, used to treat malaria, a disease that was a major cause of mortality in the tropical regions of the world. Her discovery of artemisinin, a drug that has saved millions of lives, was a significant breakthrough in 20th-century tropical medicine, earning her the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015. She is the first Chinese woman to receive a Nobel Prize in a scientific category.

Early Life and Education[edit | edit source]

Tu Youyou was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, in 1930. She attended Peking University in Beijing, where she studied at the School of Pharmacy and graduated in 1955. She then pursued further studies at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, where she became deeply involved in the study of Chinese herbal medicine.

Career and Research[edit | edit source]

In 1967, during the height of the Cultural Revolution, Tu was appointed as the head of Project 523, a secret military project in China aimed at finding a cure for malaria. At the time, malaria was decimating troops in the tropical regions of Southeast Asia. Tu Youyou turned to ancient Chinese medical texts and folk remedies to find potential treatments for malaria. After screening over 2,000 traditional Chinese recipes and extracts from 380 herbs, she and her team discovered that an extract from the plant Artemisia annua (sweet wormwood) was particularly effective against the malaria parasite.

The active compound, later named artemisinin, was isolated in 1972. Artemisinin and its derivatives have since become essential components of the standard treatment for Plasmodium falciparum malaria worldwide. Tu's work on artemisinin represents a successful example of integrating traditional knowledge into modern scientific research.

Awards and Honors[edit | edit source]

Tu Youyou's contributions to medicine have been recognized with numerous awards and honors. Most notably, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015, sharing the prize with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura, who were recognized for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Tu has received the Lasker Award in 2011 for clinical medical research and has been honored with various other national and international awards.

Legacy[edit | edit source]

Tu Youyou's discovery of artemisinin has had a profound impact on global health, significantly reducing the mortality rates from malaria. Her work is a testament to the power of combining traditional knowledge with modern scientific research methodologies. Tu's achievements have paved the way for further research into traditional Chinese medicines and their potential applications in modern medicine.