How Tu Youyou Discovered A Drug That Saved Millions of Lives
credit – Photo bt STRAFPGetty Images Only a privileged few win the Nobel Prize in their lifetime. Even fewer do so in the scientific category without a medical or a doctorate. Tu Youyou, a Chinese chemist and Malariologist did just that. She won the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine in 2015 for discovering an anti-malaria drug called artemisinin. In the mid-1960s, millions all over the world were suffering from Malaria. Chloroquine, the go-to anti-malaria treatment at the time, had become resistant to the disease. To overcome this newer version of Malaria, Chairman Mao Zedong launched Project 523 and appointed Tu Youyou as its director. In the quest to find the malaria cure, Tu Youyou and her team turned to classical Chinese medicinal books. After hours of studying various herbs, they found mentions of Qinghao in a 1600-year-old book that cited it as the treatment for malaria symptoms. The work was only half done. Developing an effective drug required one more step: ext...