Tu Youyou won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning a novel therapy against malaria, including artemisinin.
Tu led research that examined traditional Chinese medical texts and tested plant extracts for antimalarial activity. The team identified sweet wormwood, Artemisia annua, as a promising source and developed methods to extract its active compound, artemisinin.
Artemisinin-based treatments became essential tools against malaria, particularly when used in combination therapies that help slow resistance. Tu shared the 2015 prize with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura, whose work concerned therapies against roundworm parasites.
A common mistake is to call artemisinin a vaccine; it is an antimalarial drug. Another is to describe Tu’s work as simply copying a traditional remedy. Her achievement involved literature research, laboratory screening, extraction chemistry and clinical development.