Life

Chinese Medicine a winner as professor awarded Nobel Prize

Tu Youyou has become the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize, for her work in helping to create an anti-malaria medicine. The 84-year-old's route to the award has been a long and inspiring one to all in complementary medicine, writes Roisin Armstrong

Chinese medical scientist, pharmaceutical chemist, pharmacist and educator Professor Tu Youyou, joint winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Chinese medical scientist, pharmaceutical chemist, pharmacist and educator Professor Tu Youyou, joint winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Chinese medical scientist, pharmaceutical chemist, pharmacist and educator Professor Tu Youyou, joint winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

THIS year’s Nobel Prize in medicine is extremely interesting and personally gratifying to all practitioners of complementary medicine, especially those of us who practice Traditional Chinese Medicine.

The prize recipient is Tu Youyou, a Chinese medical scientist, pharmaceutical chemist, pharmacist and educator.

This 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Tu, along with William C Campbell and Satoshi Omura.

Tu is the first Chinese Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine and the first citizen of the People's Republic of China to receive the Nobel Prize in natural sciences.

She was born and educated and carried out research exclusively in China. Following a lifetime of research and discovery, this most eminent of awards was bestowed on Tu for her discovery of artemisinin, an extract of the herb Qinghaos, and dihydroartemisinin, the compound she and her team developed to treat malaria.

Tu Youyou also co-founded the professional registrar of Chinese medicine practitioners to which I belong.

The Chinese Medical Institute and Register (CMIR UK) was founded in 1994 by AcuMedic Foundation, London in collaboration with the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.

Tu, now in her 80s, began her research work in 1969 when she was appointed to work on Project 523 – a secret military programme initiated by the Chinese leadership to support the Vietnam government, who were searching for medicines to treat anti-chloroquine-resistant malaria.

They turned to Chinese Medicine in search of a remedy that could stem this devastating disease.

Tu’s discovery of artemisinin and its treatment of malaria is regarded as a significant breakthrough for tropical medicine in the 20th century and health improvement for people in south Asia, Africa, and South America.

It has transformed the lives of millions of people in the developing world.

Tasked with finding a cure for malaria in 1967, she researched more than 2,000 compounds from which she and her team isolated hundreds of herbal extracts.

At the time over 240,000 compounds around the world had already been tested, without any success.

Chloroquine, originally considered too toxic for human use, was the most effective drug at the time but was becoming less and less effective as the malaria parasites developed resistance.

Tu and her team found only one promising substance, steered by a 1,600-year-old recipe, an extract from Qinghao (Artemisia annua.L) which showed promise but the positive results could not be reliably reproduced.

The ancient recipe advised “soaking a handful of Qinghao in 2 litres of water, strain and drink”.

Previously the team had been heating the extracts and obviously adversely affecting the active ingredients.

While studying the Chinese herb her team identified the active compound which appeared to fight malaria-friendly parasites.

She perfected the preparation of the herbal extract until promising results could be replicated with more consistency.

She then volunteered, along with two colleagues, to be the first human recipients of the new drug. She described the decision as her “responsibility”.

The new drug has helped significantly reduce the mortality rates of malaria patients. Her discovery has provided humankind with powerful new means to combat a debilitating disease that affects hundreds of millions of people annually, the Nobel committee said.

Speaking from Acumedic in London, Tu’s colleague’ said: “Isolating an active ingredient and developing it into a standardised drug through clinical trials is not the only way to bring Chinese Medicine to patients. Nevertheless, Professor Tu’s triumph shows what can be achieved when traditional Chinese Medicine is treated with inquisitiveness and rigorous experimentation.

"In its evidence base of thousands of years of clinical observations, Chinese Medicine teaches us what nature can do. It is our job to spread this knowledge and make the message loud and clear. After Professor Tu’s historic Nobel victory, we hope the world will start to listen more closely. “

Her persistent curiosity into the vast body of ancient Chinese medical work serves as a lesson reiterated by Professor William C Campbell, who shared the Nobel Prize with Professors Tu and Satoshi Omura for his discovery of avermectin, a treatment for roundworm parasites.

I love Professor Campbell’s acceptance speech. Upon receiving the prize he said: “One of the big mistakes we’ve made all along is that there is a certain amount of hubris in human thinking that we can create molecules as well as nature can."

r.armstrong@irishnews.com