Tu Youyou was born on December 30, 1930, in Ningbo, China. Raised in a family that placed great importance on education, she studied at the best schools in her region. At sixteen, she contracted tuberculosis and was forced to stop her studies for two years. This experience developed in her a desire to work in medical research.

In 1955, she graduated from Peking University Medical School in the field of pharmacy, then underwent training from 1959 to 1962 in traditional Chinese medicine. In 1967, as malaria was ravaging China and killing thousands of soldiers during the Vietnam War, one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party set up a secret project aimed at discovering a cure for malaria, and appointed Tu Youyou as its head in 1969. These new responsibilities led to many sacrifices from the young woman who exiled herself to southern China and had to be away from her husband and two daughters.

For years, she and her team reviewed thousands of traditional Chinese remedies, until “they came across a Chinese plant, A”rtemisia annua, known for reducing the number of parasites in the blood. Research on this plant led her to discover artemisinin, the active ingredient for fighting malaria, which she then tested on herself in 1972. After about thirty hours, artemisinin showed encouraging results that allowed her to move on to trials with real patients. Thus, research on artemisinin led to the discovery of a cure for malaria, saving millions of lives.

For her research, she received:

1. The “National Prize for Top Ten Discoveries in Science and Technology”

2. The “National Invention Prize”

3. The title of “Eminent Scientist” by the Chinese nation

4. The Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research (in 2011)

5. The Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015 with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura

Written by Jeyani. S .