Tu Youyou facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tu Youyou
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| 屠呦呦 | |||||||||||||
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Tu in 2015
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| Born | 30 December 1930 Ningbo, Zhejiang, Republic of China
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| Education | Beijing Medical College (BMed) | ||||||||||||
| Known for | Discovering artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin | ||||||||||||
| Awards | Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (2011) Warren Alpert Foundation Prize (2015) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2015) Highest Science and Technology Award, China (2016) Medal of the Republic, China (2019) |
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| Scientific career | |||||||||||||
| Fields | Medicinal chemistry Chinese herbology Antimalarial medication Clinical research |
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| Institutions | China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine | ||||||||||||
| Academic advisors | Lou Zhicen | ||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||
| Chinese | 屠呦呦 | ||||||||||||
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Tu Youyou (Chinese: 屠呦呦; pinyin: Tú Yōuyōu; born 30 December 1930) is a famous Chinese chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She discovered special medicines called artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin. These powerful drugs treat a dangerous fever called malaria. Because of her discovery, doctors have cured millions of sick people in South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America. Her discoveries transformed modern tropical medicine around the globe.
Tu was born, grew up, and completed all her scientific research in China. She is the first Chinese woman from the People's Republic of China to win a Nobel Prize. She also received the famous Lasker Award for her great work. In 2019, her country honored her with the Medal of the Republic, their highest award.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Tu was born in the coastal city of Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, on 30 December 1930. Her father chose her unique name from an old book of poems called the Chinese Book of Odes. One line describes deer making a "youyou" sound while eating a wild sweet herb called Hao. By an amazing coincidence, she grew up to study that exact same plant to save lives!
As a teenager, Tu went to Xiaoshi Middle School and later transferred to Ningbo Middle School in 1948. While she was in high school, she became sick with a serious lung illness. This sickness forced her to take a break from classes, but it gave her a lifelong goal. She decided to study medicine so she could cure other sick people.
Tu studied hard and attended Beijing Medical College, which is now the Peking University Health Science Center. She learned pharmaceutical sciences and graduated with a medical degree in 1955. After finishing college, she studied traditional Chinese medicine for over two years. She worked at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing, where she learned how ancient plants can heal human bodies.
Finding a Cure for Dangerous Diseases
Fighting Water Parasites
Early in her career, Tu investigated a tiny creature that caused a disease called schistosomiasis. This disease came from tiny flatworms that entered people's bodies through river water. The worms infected the urinary tract and the intestines, making many people very sick in South China. Tu studied a wild plant called Lobelia chinensis to see if old remedies could fight off these nasty parasites.
The Mystery of Malaria
Malaria is a deadly fever spread by mosquitoes. It was a massive problem during the Vietnam War, where soldiers marched through damp jungles along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Many soldiers got sick, and the regular medicine called chloroquine stopped working against the illness. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh asked Chinese leader Zhou Enlai for urgent medical help.
At that time, malaria was also hurting many people living in southern Chinese areas like Guangdong and Guangxi. Chinese leader Mao Zedong agreed that scientists needed to find a new medicine right away. On 23 May 1967, the government started a secret research mission called Project 523.
Searching Through Ancient Scrolls
Scientists around the world had already tested more than 240,000 chemicals, but none cured this stubborn fever. In 1969, thirty-eight-year-old Tu was chosen to lead a special research team for Project 523. She began her search by looking at ancient recipes from Chinese herbology rather than just modern artificial chemicals.
Tu read hundreds of old medical handbooks and visited traditional doctors across the country. She wrote down 640 promising plant formulas in a special notebook. Her team tested more than 2,000 old recipes and produced 380 herbal extracts from 200 plants to try on sick mice.
One plant showed wonderful results: a fragrant herb known as sweet wormwood, or Artemisia annua. In ancient books, it was called qinghao. For centuries, people drank it to treat shivering and high fevers. However, when Tu tested it in her modern laboratory, it did not always work.
The Secret Temperature Trick
Tu refused to give up and reread an ancient text written in the year 340 by a scholar named Ge Hong during the Jin dynasty. The text told healers to soak the green leaves in cool water, wring out the juice, and drink it. Tu realized that boiling water ruined the healing chemical inside the plant.
She changed her method and extracted the plant using a cool liquid called ether at low temperatures. In 1972, this low-heat method successfully trapped the active medicine, which she called qinghaosu, known in English as artemisinin. Tests on animals proved that this cool extract completely cleared malaria out of mice and monkeys.
Testing the Medicine on Herself
Before giving the new medicine to sick people, Tu needed to know if it was safe. Because she was the leader of the team, she bravely volunteered to swallow the medicine first. Two of her brave scientific partners took it with her in the hospital.
None of them got sick from the extract, showing the medicine was safe for humans. Doctors then gave it to human patients, and their fevers went away quickly. Tu also mapped out the chemical structure of the molecule. While studying its chemical shape, she discovered an even stronger version called dihydroartemisinin.
Worldwide Fame and Honors
Tu shared her scientific discovery with the World Health Organization in 1981. Her plant medicine became the standard treatment for malaria all across the globe. Today, it has protected millions of children and adults from fatal fevers.
In 2015, Tu won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine alongside scientists William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura. People called her the "Three-Without Scientist" because she had no master's degree, never studied abroad, and did not belong to the elite Chinese Academy of Sciences. Yet, her hard work and clever thinking saved countless lives.
In China, Tu reached the top academic rank of full professor. She worked for decades inside the Dongcheng District of Beijing. Today, she is honored worldwide as an inspiring pioneer who unlocked ancient nature to protect the modern world.
See also
In Spanish: Tu Youyou para niños
- Drug discovery
- Malaria
- Antimalarial medication
- Artemisinin
- Dihydroartemisinin
- Traditional Chinese medicine
- Timeline of women in science
