NOBEL LECTURE: Discovery of Artemisinin - A gift from traditional Chinese medicine to the world.

In 1972 Tu Youyou discovered Artemisinin, the standard treatment worldwide for P. falciparum malaria as well as malaria due to other species of Plasmodium. Artemisinin is extracted from Artemisia annua (sweet wormwood), an herb employed in Chinese traditional medicine.

In 2015 Tu Youyou was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria.” The other half was awarded to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura “for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.”

Tu (last name) was the first Chinese person to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research done in China. Because the original publications about this drug were in Chinese it was not possible to cite them accurately in this bibliography. For that reason I have chosen to cite her Nobel lecture in which she recounts the discovery in great detail and includes the original Chinese citations and later English language citations. Her Nobel Lecture is available from the Nobel website at this link.