When Dr. Tu Youyou accepted the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015, the first mainland Chinese scientist to do so, she gave a lecture entitled “Discovery of Artemisinin: A Gift from Traditional Chinese Medicine to the World.” She explained how she had extracted the malaria-fighting compound Artemisinin from the plant Artemisia Annua (also known as Sweet Wormwood). In doing so, and in such a spectacular fashion, she gave us two important lessons: the first about the value of pursuing one’s true purpose in life and the second about the value of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Both journeys were incredibly difficult and incredibly rewarding.

The first unfortunately began when a sixteen-year-old Tu Youyou contracted tuberculosis and had to stop her education. The healing process was painfully slow, lasting two years. It was during this period of forced contemplation that she had her career epiphany – she vowed to devote the rest of her life to finding a cure for diseases like the one that had so debilitated her. When she could finally re-enter academic life, she studied pharmacology at Beijing Medical College and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) at the Academy of Traditional Medicine. She used TCM to complement her Western medicine research.

Determined to fulfill her life’s mission, graduate and now scientist Dr. Tu embarked on her professional research journey during the turmoil of China’s Cultural Revolution. She was recruited by Mao Zedong to be part of a covert research team that worked under the name “Project 523.” The team’s goal was to find a cure for malaria. Mao needed this cure to enable his Communist troops to continue to fight in the mosquito-ridden jungles of Vietnam, where the chloroquine-resistant mosquitos were killing more of his soldiers than enemy bullets.

After the Revolution she continued her research focus, unwavering in pursuing her teenage vow. At one point, she even left her young children for three years to singularly focus on finding a malaria cure. She remained undaunted by the fact that her team had already tested 240,000 compounds, all of which were found to be ineffective.

When did success finally happen? Dr. Tu turned to Traditional Chinese Medicine, searching for clues in the ancient texts of the Zhou, Qing, and Han Dynasties. The breakthrough came when Dr. Tu and her team used an ether-based solvent at a low temperature to retain the potency of the compound Artemisinin, extracted from an herb mentioned in those texts. A 100% success rate in pre-clinical trials with monkeys and mice was followed by Dr. Tu using herself as the first test subject, much like Jonas Salk before her.

These ground-breaking findings were eventually published. When Dr. Tu, at the invitation of the World Health Organization, World Bank and United Nations, personally presented them, she said in her commentary:

“Chinese medicine will help us conquer life-threatening diseases worldwide, and … people across the globe will enjoy its benefits for health promotion.”

So from her life and her life’s work, Dr. Tu Youyou has bequeathed us two important lessons:

The first is that when our daily work and our life’s purpose are aligned, great things happen. Finding that purpose is sometimes the truly difficult part of the journey; in Dr. Tu’s case, it took two years of stepping out of life to get the perspective that she needed to gain this clarity.

The second is that Traditional Chinese Medicine is a treasure trove of herbal knowledge that has been used for centuries to combat disease and support healing. Dr. Tu tapped these resources in her journey to a successful malaria cure. Her novel approach of studying this rich informational history and ancient treatment protocols is even more important in a contemporary world ravaged by bacterial and viral diseases. Her work was quickly followed by the follow-up work of Dr. Keasling, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering at UC Berkeley, who later developed a biotechnology-based technique for creating biosynthetic artemisinin.

Dr. Tu’s journeys are an inspiration for all of us. In a world where we are still managing the vestiges of a pandemic, and reexamining our own priorities and purpose in life, her success story of determination and discovery becomes especially relevant.

We need an army of Dr. Tu’s to take up all types of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) research, leveraging this incredible resource into new treatment protocols.

And we, as individuals soldiering through our own intense daily challenges, need to also take up her cause by embracing her example of recasting those challenges as life-changing opportunities.

Resources:

https://www.nobelprize.org/womenwhochangedscience/stories/tu-youyou

The Economist, “Green-sky thinking”, July 16, 2022.

A Nobel Journey: Two Lessons from the Work of Dr. Tu

Sign up to receive more free offers and updates