Tu Youyou

Biography

Tu Youyou is a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist and malariologist who became the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2015. Born on December 30, 1930, in Ningbo, China, she focused her career on fighting malaria through the discovery of artemisinin, a groundbreaking antimalarial compound from traditional Chinese medicine. Her work has greatly changed global malaria treatment and saved millions of lives on several continents. Tu studied at top Chinese schools, including Peking University, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and Peking University Health Science Center. Her early education was at Ningbo High School and Xiaoshi Middle School, which set her on a scientific path. She stayed in China throughout her career, doing all her research and development in the country's scientific institutions. She discovered artemisinin by systematically studying traditional Chinese medicinal texts during the 1960s and 1970s, a time when malaria was a serious issue for both military and civilian populations. Tu carefully screened hundreds of herbal remedies and identified the sweet wormwood plant (Artemisia annua) as the source of the active compound. She isolated artemisinin and its derivative dihydroartemisinin, proving their effectiveness against malaria parasites. This breakthrough was a major advancement in twentieth-century tropical medicine, especially helping areas in South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America where malaria was widespread. Her work connected traditional Chinese medicine with modern pharmaceutical science, showing that ancient knowledge could be validated by scientific methods.