Giants in History: Tu Youyou

Tu Youyou (born 30 December 1930) is a Chinese pharmaceutical scientist who was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work on extracting artemisin from sweet wormwood to treat malaria. Tu performed her research during the Cultural Revolution in China, when scientists were persecuted. Trained in traditional Chinese medicine, she screened over 2,000 traditional Chinese recipes and made 380 herbal extracts, from 200 herbs, before discovering that artemisinin from sweet wormwood could inhibit the malaria parasite. Her work has helped save millions of lives in South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America where malaria is prevalent. Photo shows her talking with her tutor Lou Zhicen at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in the 1950s.