In 1969, the world was still grappling with the ethics of chemical warfare. It was a battle of survival, and only the toughest soldiers lived to tell the tale. But that wasn't the only battle being fought.
Death was paramount during war, and many soldiers died in the Vietnam War more from disease than from bullets or bombs. The illness was so severe that the Vietnamese government reached out to the Chinese, Mao Zedong of China for help.
Chinese scientist Tu Youyou was given a secret mission, with a number: 523. Although scientific research was illegal then, Chairman Mao Zedong trusted her with it: to find a cure for malaria.
Who is Tu Youyou?
The Chinese Scientist originated from the east coast of the city of Ningbo and was born on December 30, 1930. She was the only girl child to her parents and had four brothers.
Education at that age in China was a privilege, but despite the challenge, Tu and her brothers were able to complete their schooling.
At age sixteen, Tu contracted tuberculosis, which put a pause to her education for two years. This epiphany made her interested in medicine; she had a goal: to help find a cure for diseases as she had, and she went to the University to study Pharmacology.
It was a bold choice. By her second year, the Medical school split from Peking University, becoming an independent medical college with advanced pharmacology courses. Tu was given the basic training needed, but it was her speciality in Traditional Chinese Medicine that earned her a place on the team for the Project 523 secret mission.
The Search for a Cure
When Mao Zedong contacted Tu for the Project 523 secret mission, there was no recorded successful treatment for curing malaria, except the use of chloroquine and quinolines for the longest time. Tu's task was to find a cure using traditional Chinese medicines.
Tu Youyou, alongside her team of researchers and scientists, tested out different research on several thousand compounds, herbs, and plants, but none was successful.
She stumbled upon an ancient Chinese recipe by Ge Hong, called the Zhouhou Beiji Fang (Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies). In her Nobel lecture, Tu described her idea from a single line of text from the recipe, which indicated: A handful of Qinghao was immersed in two litres of water, wring out the juice, and drink it all. (Noble Prize Lecture).
Qinghao (Artemisia Annua or Sweet Wormwood) led to the discovery of Artemisinin. The breakthrough came when she discovered in previous tests that heat was destroying the active compounds in the herb. She later went on to redesign the experiment to include the use of ethanol, water, and ethyl ether.
Tu's biography and Nobel Lecture describe how these extracts were tested on rodent malaria, and the Sample no. 191 (The extract mixed with ethyl ether) inhibited the malaria parasites in the rodent. (Tu's Biography, Nobel Prize Lecture).
She was also able to extract two portions (neutral and toxic acidic) from the testing. The neutral portion tested the same results when used to inhibit the malaria parasites in monkeys.
The clinical trials.
Tu's discovery of Artemisinin opened doors to human testing.
According to Xin-Zhuan Su and Louis Miller, writing for the National Library of Medicine, Tu's results were promising enough that the leadership of the project 523 approved her and her team to begin a clinical trial. (Su & Miller, NLM)
She volunteered to be the first to test the extract on herself, alongside two other colleagues. Her fear lay in the time frame they had to finalise the medicine before the malaria epidemic would end. She wanted the medicine to be circulated as soon as possible, as she and her colleagues were already experiencing symptoms due to the exposure from the testing.
In the words of her biography, ‘Traditional Chinese medicine started with a story: Shen Nong tasted a hundred herbs'. Shen Nong was an ancient Chinese medical practitioner. To understand the efficacy and toxicity of the herbs, he tasted over a hundred herbs himself and recorded all the details, which left us with a lot of precious information.
After a week of hospital supervision, there were no side effects. More colleagues volunteered, bringing the trial to twenty-one patients, some infected with different strains of malaria (P. falciparum, P. vivax, and mixed infections). The results were successful, with no adverse effects.
From Discovery to Global Treatment
This was just the beginning of the revolutionary treatment, Artemisinin. In later years, variants of the medicine became standard antimalarial drugs worldwide.
In 1981, the World Health Organisation and United Nations formally recognised artemisinin’s antimalarial efficacy at the Beijing International Symposium on Antimalarial Drug Development, marking a major milestone that led to the global adoption of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACTs) as the first-line treatment for Plasmodium falciparum malaria. (Yi Xia et al. 2025).
Yet a 2021 WHO report for the Global Technical Strategy for malaria 2016-2030 reported that as of 2019, the WHO African Region accounted for 94% of the global malaria mortality and morbidity burden, and only nine out of 47 countries achieved the 2020 milestones. Two countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria – still account for about 40% of the estimated morbidity and mortality due to malaria worldwide. (WHO, Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016–2030, Geneva, 2015).
The creation of Artemisinin and its variants (dihydroartemisinin, Artesunate, Arteminisic Acid, Artemether, Arteether, SM934, DC32, ADART, TPN10466, TPN10475) now serve as health goals far beyond malaria in the world.
A 2025 review of clinical trials revealed that Tu Youyou's Artemisinin discovery could open room for other research, such as cancer treatment, immune system regulation, metabolic disorders, and kidney diseases. This is supported by a 2024 review in Frontiers in Immunology documenting artemisinin-derived compounds developed for autoimmune conditions. (PMC, 2025; Frontiers in Immunology, 2024)
Still, many, especially in the Western world, believe Tu Youyou's discovery wasn't hers alone when she was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2015, alongside two other persons, William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura, for a separate discovery (avermectin, for parasitic worm infections).
This brought about a controversy debated between China's collectivist research culture and the West's obsession with the lone genius narrative.
In an article by Xin Lin, Tian Yi, and An Pei for Radio Free Asia, it was reported that many found Tu's award a bittersweet moment for China.
Beijing University of Science and Technology professor Chen Zhaozhi pointed out that Tu was honoured abroad before being recognised at home, and she was still not even a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“That's the saddest thing, because it shows that this system isn't at the forefront of taking the best of Chinese science to the world, and that China can't advance if the system doesn't change," he went on to say, and criticised the scientific establishment in China for not nurturing innovation.
Although Tu has said the award was a "great honour," she said that not all of the credit for her work on artemisinin should be hers, calling it the "collective achievement" of her research team. (RFA article, 2015).
A comparative 2022 media study found that Western media politicise scientific and technological events. On the other hand, Chinese media tend to focus on scientific research and stress a communal spirit among researchers, but the reports have the problem of similar content and style.
The comparative study analysed newspapers and media outlets in China and the United States, and it was found that in the United States, there was little to no attention paid to Tu Youyou, and most of what was written about her was after the Nobel Prize in 2015. (Zhou, Song & Liu, Global Media and China, 2022).
Before the Nobel Prize, Tu had received notable recognition for her work: The award for progress in antimalarial research achieved by the Project 523 scientific team in 1978, Top healthcare achievement in New China, the Woman inventor of the century award in 2002, the Lasker De-Bakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 2011, amongst others.
Her notable feats as well as her contributions to the progressive healthcare of the world speak for themselves. She has more than earned that Nobel prize.
Even Chinese Premier Li Keqiang congratulated Tu on her achievement, in an interview with the official Xinhua news agency.
“Some may question Tu’s lack of a doctoral degree, international experience, and a title as an academician of the Chinese Academy."
"The fact that Tu has none of these three backgrounds also reminds us that science should be more accessible to all" (RFA article, 2015).
With no formal degree, doctorate, or a seat at the table with Chinese Academics, Tu Youyou still found a way to help millions of people to this day. That is enough proof that science does not belong only to credentials.
References:
- Miller, L. H., & Su, X. (2011). Artemisinin: Discovery from the Chinese herbal garden. Cell, 146(6), 855–858.
https://doi.org - Tu, Y. (2015). Artemisinin—A gift from traditional Chinese medicine to the world [Nobel lecture]. The Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org
- Xin, L., Tian, Y., & An, P. (2015, October 8). Tu Youyou's 'bittersweet' Nobel Prize a boost for Chinese medicine. Radio Free Asia.
https://www.rfa.org - Xia, Y., Shi, C., Lu, J., Zhu, Z., Li, M., Pan, Y., Huang, X., Zhang, L., & Liu, A. (2025). Artemisinin and its derivatives from molecular mechanisms to clinical applications: New horizons beyond antimalarials. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 26(17), 8409.
https://doi.org - [Long, Z., Xiang, W., Xiao, W., Min, Y., Qu, F., Zhang, B., & Zeng, L. (2024). Advances in the study of artemisinin and its derivatives for the treatment of rheumatic skeletal disorders, autoimmune inflammatory diseases, and autoimmune disorders: A comprehensive review. Frontiers in Immunology, 15.
https://doi.org - World Health Organisation. (2015). Global technical strategy for malaria 2016–2030. WHO.
- Zhou, M., Song, J., & Liu, X. (2022). Telling China's story through reports on scientists: A comparative analysis of the reports on Tu Youyou in Chinese and Western media. Global Media and China. https://doi.org
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