The Book of Songs says, "Yo yo Luming Literature, wild apple. I have a guest, blowing sheng. " This poem is the origin of the name of China scientist Tu Youyou. Perhaps by coincidence or fate, the female scientist named "Yo Yo" and her research team discovered artemisinin, a specific drug for malaria treatment, from Artemisia annua, thus saving millions of lives around the world, especially in developing countries.
Red blood cells infected by plasmodium
Malaria was called miasma in ancient China. The disease is caused by the bite of female Anopheles and the entry of plasmodium into human body. It is characterized by repeated attacks of cold and heat, commonly known as "shaking". If the treatment is not timely, anemia and various symptoms caused by brain, liver, kidney, heart, intestine and stomach damage may occur.
Quinoline drugs have been used to treat malaria before artemisinin. However, after decades of clinical application of quinoline drugs, plasmodium has developed strong resistance to them, and the curative effect of the drugs has dropped sharply. People are looking forward to the emergence of new antimalarial drugs.
In the early 1960s, the global malaria epidemic was serious and difficult to control. During the Vietnam War, both American and Vietnamese troops suffered great losses. The anxious Vietnamese turned to China for help. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have ordered the concentration of national scientific and technological forces to jointly develop antimalarial drugs. A project code-named "523" came into being. As a member of this project, Tu Youyou and her team immediately started the research. By consulting herbal literature, "Artemisia annua" attracted the attention of Tu Youyou. As early as the 2nd century BC, Artemisia annua was recorded in the pre-Qin medical prescription "Fifty-two Diseases Prescription". Ge Hong's Elbow Backup Emergency Prescription in the Eastern Jin Dynasty first described the antimalarial effect of Artemisia annua. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica in Ming Dynasty said that it could cure malaria, cold and heat.
Artemisia annua cultivated in laboratory
There is no breakthrough in the research team's two-year hard experiment, which will inevitably make everyone confused. Tu Youyou went back to study the ancient Chinese medicine books carefully, hoping to get some enlightenment from them. 197 1 One day in the second half, she was inspired by the record of "holding Artemisia annua in one hand, soaking it in two liters of water, and taking out the juice" in Elbow Jifang. Why did the ancients "wring juice" from Artemisia annua instead of the traditional boiling method? Tu Youyou realized that boiling at high temperature might destroy the active ingredients. So, she redesigned the experimental scheme and extracted artemisinin with ether with lower boiling point.
This detail has become the key to solving the problem. 197 1 year 10/October 4th, after nearly 200 failed experiments, Tu Youyou finally obtained the neutral extract of Artemisia annua, a close relative of Artemisia annua, and its inhibition rate on plasmodium in animals was 100%.
It has a long history. From The Book of Songs to Elbow Jifang, Compendium of Materia Medica and the discovery of artemisinin, this process is a microcosm of the inheritance, development, innovation and popularization of traditional Chinese medicine.