Thursday 29 September 2016

Works that got nobel prize for medicine2015 part 2






Tu Youyou is a Chinese medical scientist, chemist and pharmacist who shared the Nobel Prize for medicine-2015 with Satoshi Omura and William.C.Campbell.
The prize was awarded for her significant works on novel therapy against malaria; specifically, for her work on a drug called artemisinin and its derivatives.

What is Artemisinin?
It is a sesquiterpene lactone drug that contains an unusual peroxide bridge, which is important in the drug’s mechanism of action. It was isolated from the Chinese herb called sweet wormwood or Artemisia annua. Its derivatives used as antimalarial drugs which reduce the number of parasites in the blood of malarial patients, thereby helps them recover from the disease. Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACT’s) produced substantial results against deadly malarial parasites and are recommended by WHO as an uncomplicated way of treatingP.falciparum malaria.

Work’s of Tu Youyou:  She was the head of China’s research to find treatment against malaria which they named it as Project523. She studied various Chinese traditional herbs which were said to be effective against Malaria. In the year 1971, researchers under her supervision were able to find out the antimalarial effects of an extract of quinghao(Artemisia annua).

Artemisinin– though proved effective against malaria,, it’s extraction was difficult as it was neither water-soluble nor dissolved in the ether. It was Professor Tu You who developed methods to extract artemisinin. During the process, she was able to synthesizeDihydroartemisinin which was water-soluble. She proved its efficacy and elucidated its structure, thereby pioneering the synthesis of its derivatives, their production and Marketing as a drug.

It took 33years to get WHO’s recognition for the use of artemisinin’s derivatives as an antimalarial drug. Thanks to Tu Youyou’s discoveries and inventions that saved and saving millions of humans worldwide.

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