Artemisinin: What is a small step for human beings to conquer diseases?

Artemisinin: A small step for human beings to conquer diseases is to treat malaria. Tu Youyou devoted himself to the research and practice of traditional Chinese medicine for more than 60 years, led the team to overcome difficulties, discovered artemisinin, solved the long-term problem of failure in antimalarial treatment, and made great contributions to scientific and technological innovation of traditional Chinese medicine and human health.

Research background of artemisinin

Malaria is one of the oldest diseases in human beings, and it is still an important public health problem that is widely concerned around the world and needs to be solved urgently. 163 1 year, Italian missionary Salou Bourinot obtained an effective medicine for treating fever from Peruvians in South America, and brought it back to Europe to treat fever. It was soon found that this medicine had obvious relieving effect on intermittent fever.

1820, French chemist pelletier and pharmacist Cavento separated the effective components for treating malaria from cinchona bark and named them quinine.

1944, American organic chemists Woodward and Linde successfully synthesized quinine for the first time. Since then, scientists have continuously improved antimalarial drugs, forming aromatic and heterocyclic methanol represented by quinine, 4-aminoquinoline represented by chloroquine and heterocyclic aminophenol antimalarial drugs represented by amodiaquine.