Universal Encyclopedia
Who was Tu Youyou?
Tu Youyou (born 1930) is the Chinese pharmaceutical chemist who discovered artemisinin, the most effective malaria treatment in history: leading the secret Project 523 from 1969, she extracted the compound from sweet wormwood in 1972 and shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Last updated: October 2026
With no advanced equipment and working through the Cultural Revolution, she turned to ancient Chinese medical texts for leads — and found, in a 4th-century handbook, the clue that unlocked a cure now saving millions of lives a year.