Tu Youyou - Contribution to Pharmacology

Tu Youyou - Chinese Pharmacologist

• Tu Youyou was born in Ningbo, China's east coast.
• Despite a 2-year interruption to her education due to tuberculosis, she studied pharmacology at Peking University.
• She studied herbal medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
• In 1955, she joined the newly formed Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
• In 1969, she was appointed head of "Project 523" on Hainan Island to find new antimalarial drugs from traditional Chinese medicine.
• Within 3 months, Tu's team gathered over 2,000 antimalarial drugs.
• She discovered artemisinin, a compound that became a key malaria treatment worldwide.
• Her discovery earned her a Nobel Prize in 2015.

Tu Youyou's Work

• She researched thousands of compounds for their antimalarial properties in the late 1960s.
• Her research successfully isolated artemisinin.
• She was inspired by contracting tuberculosis as a teenager in 1937.
• She studied schistosomiasis in 1955, gaining insight into parasite diseases.
• She built a team of scientists in her 30s to find a new antimalarial drug.
• She used traditional Chinese medicine as inspiration.
• Tu Youyou, along with her team, found a 1,600-year-old recipe that helped her find an effective approach to extract artemisinin.

Malaria Research

• Malaria was widespread, especially in China, with high death rates.
• The disease is caused by the Plasmodium parasite, and transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes.
• Malaria eradication programs (1955-1968) included treatments with available drugs, but parasite resistance to existing drugs (e.g., chloroquine) was a major concern.