Who she is
Tu Youyou was born in Ningbo, on China’s east coast, in 1930. After recovering from tuberculosis as a teenager she decided to study medicine, and she graduated in pharmacy from Beijing Medical College in 1955. She has spent her whole career at what is now the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, studying the chemistry of traditional herbal medicines.
The discovery of artemisinin
In 1969 Tu was appointed to lead a research group in Project 523, a secret national programme to find treatments for malaria, which had become resistant to the drug chloroquine. Her team collected more than 2000 traditional prescriptions and tested hundreds of plant extracts.
An extract of sweet wormwood (qinghao) was promising but unreliable. Reading a fourth-century text by Ge Hong, which advised soaking the herb in cold water rather than boiling it, Tu realized that heat might be destroying the active compound. She switched to extraction with diethyl ether at low temperature, and in 1971 obtained an extract that completely cleared the parasites in infected animals. In 1972 her team isolated the pure compound, artemisinin. Because there were no facilities for safety testing, Tu and two colleagues volunteered to take the extract themselves before it was given to patients.
Key idea
Tu Youyou combined careful reading of traditional medical texts with modern extraction, purification and testing: an approach that shows how chemistry can turn traditional knowledge into a reliable medicine.
Prizes and legacy
Artemisinin-based combination therapies are now the standard treatment for malaria worldwide and have saved millions of lives. Tu received the Lasker Award in 2011 and, in 2015, half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; the other half went to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for avermectin, another natural-product drug, against parasitic worms. She became the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize in a science, and is often described as a “three-noes” laureate: no doctorate, no study abroad, and no membership of the Chinese academies at the time of her discoveries.
Connections to your lessons
Read the full chemistry story in Artemisinin: An Ancient Text and a Modern Malaria Drug, and see how extraction depends on intermolecular forces and separation on chromatography.
Timeline
- 1930Born in Ningbo; as a teenager, a bout of tuberculosis inspires her interest in medicine.
- 1955Graduates in pharmacy and joins the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing.
- 1967China launches Project 523 to find new drugs against chloroquine-resistant malaria.
- 1969Appointed head of a Project 523 research group; her team screens more than 2000 traditional recipes.
- 1971Inspired by Ge Hong's fourth-century text, switches to a low-temperature ether extraction; extract 191 clears malaria parasites in animals.
- 1972Her team isolates pure artemisinin. Tu and colleagues test the extract on themselves before the first clinical trials.
- 1973Makes dihydroartemisinin, a more powerful derivative.
- 1977The structure of artemisinin is published by the research group.
- 2011Receives the Lasker Award, bringing international recognition.
- 2015Becomes the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize in a science.
Sources and further reading
Explore next
1972 Artemisinin isolated
Artemisinin: An Ancient Text and a Modern Malaria Drug
How a 1600-year-old prescription led to a Nobel Prize and saved millions of lives.
How Tu Youyou's team found artemisinin in sweet wormwood using a clue from a fourth-century Chinese text, why its peroxide bridge kills malaria parasites, and how it is made today.
Marie Curie
1867–1934
Marie Curie (1867–1934) discovered polonium and radium, coined the word radioactivity and won Nobel Prizes in both physics (1903) and chemistry (1911).
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