The WHO has indicated that in 2009, the most recent year for which data are available, approximately 250 million people were infected with malaria, and nearly one million of those patients succumbed to their infections. But without Youyou Tu (Institute of Materia Medica, Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine and China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences) (Figure (Figure1),1), many of those 249 million others may not have survived. This is the story of how Tu led a team that transformed an ancient Chinese method of using the herb qinghao into artemisinin, the most powerful antimalarial medicine that currently exists. And as the Chinese proverb has it, “He who plants a garden, plants happiness.” Figure 1 Youyou Tu, winner of the 2011 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Ushma S. Neill (2011) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: