Ancient Medicine Wins Nobel Prize

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was won by a Chinese scientist, Tu Youyou, for her discovery of anti-malarial drug, artemisinin in the 1970s. Artemisinin is derived from the flowering plant Artemisia annua (or sweet wormwood). Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are now standard treatment for malaria worldwide, and several drugs containing artemisinin such as Artesunate are now widely available.

Artemisia plant

While it was heralded as a pathbreaking discovery in the 1970's, it turns out it wasn't entirely a new discovery. In fact, it had been known to mankind thousands of years ago, and has a very interesting journey from ancient to modern medicine.

Several thousand years ago, ancient Chinese doctors prescribed tea made from a flowering plant called Qing Hao (modern name: artemisia) for fever and inflammation. Like many other traditional medicines, it was lost in historical texts. That is until the Vietnam War started. The Viêt-Cong soldiers fighting the Americans in the deep swamps of Vietnam faced danger from deadly mosquitos, losing thousands to malaria. So they turned to China for help, who did not have a ready answer but vowed to help.

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China's Chairman Mao Zedong launched Project 523 in 1967 to find a cure for malaria, and Tu Youyou was made head of the project. She turned to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to research historical treatment of malaria, a disease that was common in China too, and discovered a reference to artemisia/Qing Hao. After trying it on herself and other volunteers and finding it to be 100% effective, it was supplied to the Viêt-Cong, where large infusions of dried artemisia was found to work wonders. It soon became standard medicine for treatment of malaria around the world, earning Youyou the Nobel prize in 2015.

Nobel Laureate Tao Youyou

Sources:

https://www.who.int/malaria/position_statement_herbal_remedy_artemisia_annua_l.pdf
https://www.who.int/malaria/mpac/mpac-october2019-session3-non-pharmaceutical-use-artemisia.pdf
https://www.nobelprize.org/womenwhochangedscience/stories/tu-youyou

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