March 17th, 2021

Pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou was born on December 30, 1930, in Zhejiang, China. Her discovery of artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, used to treat malaria, has saved millions of lives.

Tu, who studied traditional Chinese and herbal medicines, said she found a reference in ancient medical texts (from 340 AD) to use sweet wormwood to treat intermittent fevers, a malaria symptom. In 1972, she (along with her research team) extracted the malaria-inhibiting artemisinin (or qinghaosu in Chinese) from wormwood. And she bravely volunteered to be the first human subject to test the substance. Since her discovery of artemisinin, antimalarial drugs based on the discovery have saved millions of lives.

For her work, Tu received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which has been deemed "arguably the most important pharmaceutical intervention in the last half-century" by the Lasker Foundation for medical research.

Tu is currently the Chief Scientist at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine - a position she reached without a medical degree, a Ph.D., or research training abroad.