Tu Youyou
长恨歌作者For the discovery of artemisinin, a drug therapy for malaria that has saved millions of lives across the globe, especially in the developing world. 关于手的成语
The 2011 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Rearch Award honors a scientist who discovered artemisinin and its utility for treating malaria. Tu Youyou (China Academy of Chine Medical Sciences, Beijing) developed a therapy that has saved millions of lives across the globe, especially in the developing world. An artemisinin-bad drug combination is now the standard regimen for malaria, and the World Health Organization (WHO) lists artemisinin and related agents in its catalog of "Esntial Medicines." Each year, veral hundred million people contract malaria. Without treatment, many more of them would die than do now. Tu led a team that transformed an ancient Chine healing method into the most powerful antimalarial medicine currently available.
Malaria has devastated humans for millennia, and it continues to ravage civilizations across the planet. In 2008, the mosquito-borne parasites that cau the illness, Plasmodi
a, infected 247 million people and caud almost one million deaths. The ailment strikes children particularly hard, especially tho in sub-Saharan Africa. It affects more than 100 countries—including tho in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, parts of Europe—and travelers from everywhere. Symptoms include fever, headache, and vomiting; malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs. Early diagnosis and treatment reduces dia incidence, prevents deaths, and cuts transmission.
情侣对话
In the late 1950s, the WHO embarked on an ambitious project to eradicate malaria. After limited success, the dia rebounded in many places, due in part to the emergence of parasites that resisted drugs such as chloroquine that had previously held the malady at bay. At the beginning of the Chine Cultural Revolution, the Chine government launched a cret military project that aimed to devi a remedy for the deadly scourge. China was particularly motivated to prevail over malaria not only becau it was a significant problem at home, but also becau the Vietname government had asked for help. It was at war and the affliction was devastating its civilian and military populations.
The covert operation, named Project 523 for the day it was announced—May 23, 1967—t out to battle chloroquine-resistant malaria. The clandestine nature of the enterpri and the political climate created a situation in which few scientific papers concerning the project were published for many years, the earliest ones were not accessible to the international community, and many details about the endeavor are still shrouded in mystery. In early 1969, Tu was appointed head of the Project 523 rearch group at her institute, where practitioners of traditional medicine worked side by side with modern chemists, pharmacologists, and other scientists. In keeping with Mao Zedong's urgings to "explore and further improve" the "great treasure hou" of traditional Chine medicine, Tu combed ancient texts and folk remedies for possible leads. She collected 2000 candidate recipes, which she then winnowed. By 1971, her team had made 380 extracts from 200 herbs. The rearchers then assd whether the substances could clear Plasmodia from the bloodstream of mice infected with the parasite.
One of the extracts looked particularly promising: Material from Qinghao (Artemisia annua L., or sweet wormwood) dramatically inhibited parasite growth in the animals. Suc
h hopeful results, however, were not reproducible, so Tu dove back into the literature and scoured it for possible explanations. 关于财的成语
背部僵硬The first known medical description of Qinghao lies in a 2000-year-old document called "52 Prescriptions" (168 BCE) that had been unearthed from a Mawangdui Han Dynasty tomb. It details the herb's u for soothing hemorrhoids. Later texts also mention the plant's curative powers. Tu discovered a passage in the Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies (340 CE) by Ge Hong that referenced Qinghao's malaria-healing capacity. It said "Take a handful of Qinghao, soak in two liters of water, strain the liquid, and drink." She realized that the standard procedure of boiling and high-temperature extraction could destroy the active ingredient.
With this idea in mind, Tu redesigned the extraction process, performing it at low temperatures with ether as the solvent. She also removed a harmful acidic portion of the extract that did not contribute to antimalarial activity, tracked the material to the leaves rather than other parts of the plant, and figured out when to harvest the herb to maximize
yields. The innovations boosted potency and slashed toxicity. At a March 1972 meeting of the Project 523 group's key participants, she reported that the neutral plant extract —number 191—obliterated Plasmodia in the blood of mice and monkeys.
雌兔眼迷离From branch to bedside
Later that year, Tu and her team tested the substance on 21 people with malaria in the Hainan Province, an island off the southern coast of China. About half the patients were infected with Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of the microbial miscreants, and about half were infected with Plasmodium vivax, the most common cau of a dia variant that is characterized by recurring fevers. In both groups, fever disappeared rapidly, as did blood-borne parasites. 练习用英语怎么说
秦皇古驿道
