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Tu Youyou screened hundreds of traditional Chinese remedies for something that would kill the malaria parasite. The answer came from a fourth-century text — and the crucial detail was that the plant had to be soaked cold, not boiled.

Tu Youyou (b. 1930)

HealthScience

Why it matters

The idea in context

Working through the Cultural Revolution with almost no equipment, she and her team tested more than two thousand candidate preparations. Sweet wormwood kept showing promise and then failing. She went back to a Chinese medical text written around AD 340, which described steeping the herb in cold water, and realised heat was destroying the active compound. Extracted cold, artemisinin worked. She tested the first dose on herself. It has since saved millions of lives, and in 2015 she became the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize in science.

Türkçe

Aynı kart, başka bir dilde.

Tu Youyou, sıtma parazitini öldürecek bir şey bulmak için yüzlerce geleneksel Çin ilacını taradı. Yanıt dördüncü yüzyıldan bir metinden geldi — ve can alıcı ayrıntı, bitkinin kaynatılmayıp soğukta bekletilmesi gerektiğiydi.
Tu Youyou (d. 1930)

Kültür Devrimi boyunca neredeyse hiç donanımsız çalışan o ve ekibi, iki binden fazla aday hazırlığı denedi. Tatlı pelin sürekli umut verip sonra başarısız oluyordu. Yaklaşık MS 340'ta yazılmış, bitkinin soğuk suda bekletilmesini anlatan bir Çin tıp metnine döndü ve ısının etkin bileşiği yok ettiğini anladı. Soğukta çıkarılan artemisinin işe yaradı. İlk dozu kendi üzerinde denedi. O günden beri milyonlarca hayat kurtardı ve 2015'te bilimde Nobel kazanan ilk Çinli kadın oldu.

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Background reading: Tu YouyouAttribution and context are revised when stronger evidence appears. Corrections are welcome through the editorial page.
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