page_title: Artemisinin
section_title: Discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Artemisinin / History / Discovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Artemisia annua
context_page_description: Artemisinin and its semisynthetic derivatives are a group of drugs used against malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum. It was discovered in 1972 by Tu Youyou, who was co-recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery. Treatments containing an artemisinin derivative are now standard treatment worldwide for P. falciparum malaria. Artemisinin is isolated from the plant Artemisia annua, sweet wormwood, a herb employed in Chinese traditional medicine. A precursor compound can be produced using a genetically-engineered yeast, which is much more efficient than using the plant.
  Chemically, artemisinin is a sesquiterpene lactone containing an unusual peroxide bridge. This endoperoxide 1,2,4-trioxane ring is responsible for the drug's mechanism of action. Few other natural compounds with such a peroxide bridge are known.
  Artemisinin and its derivatives have been used for the treatment of malarial and parasitic worm infections. They have the advantage over other drugs in having an ability to kill faster and kill all the life cycle stages of the parasites. But low bioavailability, poor pharmacokinetic properties and high cost of the drugs are major drawbacks of their use.
context_section_description: Artemisia annua  is a common herb found in many parts of the world, and has been used by Chinese herbalists for more than 2000 years in the treatment of malaria. The earliest record dates back to 200 BCE, in the Fifty-two Prescriptions unearthed from the Mawangdui. Its antimalarial application was first described in Zhouhou Beiji Fang (The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies, Chinese: 肘後備急方), edited in the middle of the 4th century CE by Ge Hong; in that book, 43 malaria treatment methods were recorded. Images of the original scientific papers that record the history of the discovery, have been available online since 2006.
  In 1967, a plant screening research program, under a secret military programme code-named "Project 523", was set up by the People's Liberation Army to find an adequate treatment for malaria; the program and early clinical work were ordered of Mao Zedong at the request of North Vietnamese leaders to provide assistance for their malaria-ridden army. In the course of this research in 1972, Tu Youyou discovered artemisinin in the leaves of Artemisia annua.
  Named qinghaosu (Chinese: 青蒿素; lit.: 'compound of green-blue wormwood'), it was one of many candidates tested as possible treatments for malaria by Chinese scientists, from a list of nearly 5,000 traditional Chinese medicines. Tu Youyou also discovered that a low-temperature extraction process could be used to isolate an effective antimalarial substance from the plant. Tu says she was influenced by a traditional Chinese herbal medicine source The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency Treatments written in 340 CE by Ge Hong saying that this herb should be steeped in cold water. This book contained the useful reference to the herb: "A handful of qinghao immersed with two litres of water, wring out the juice and drink it all."
  Tu's team subsequently isolated a useful extract. The extracted substance, once subject to purification, proved to be useful starting point to obtain purified artemisinin. A 2012 review reported that artemisinin-based therapies were the most effective drugs for treatment of malaria at that time; it was also reported to clear malaria parasites from patients' bodies faster than other drugs. In addition to artemisinin, Project 523 developed a number of products that can be used in combination with artemisinin, including lumefantrine, piperaquine, and pyronaridine.
  Results were published in the Chinese Medical Journal in 1979. The research was met with skepticism at first, partly because the chemical structure of artemisinin, particularly the peroxide portion, appeared to be too unstable to be a viable drug.
  In the late 1990s, Novartis filed a new Chinese patent for a combination treatment with artemether and lumefantrine, providing the first artemisinin-based combination therapies (Coartem) at reduced prices to the World Health Organization. In 2006, after artemisinin had become the treatment of choice for malaria, the WHO called for an immediate halt to single-drug artemisinin preparations in favor of combinations of artemisinin with another malaria drug, to reduce the risk of parasites developing resistance.
  In 2011, Tu Youyou was awarded the prestigious Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for her role in the discovery and development of artemisinin. On October 5, 2015, she was awarded half of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering artemisinin, "a drug that has significantly reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from malaria". The other half of the prize was awarded jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for discovering avermectin, "the derivatives of which have radically lowered the incidence of River blindness and Lymphatic filariasis, as well as showing efficacy against an expanding number of other parasitic diseases".
caption: Artemisia annua
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