Artemisinin
Artemisia has been used by Chinese herbalists for more than a thousand
years in the treatment of many illnesses, such as skin diseases and
malaria. The earliest record dates back to 200 BC, in the
"Fifty-two Prescriptions" unearthed
from the Mawangdui Han Dynasty Tombs. Its
antimalarial application was first
described, in Zhouhou Beiji Fang ("The Handbook of Prescriptions
for Emergencies", Chinese: 肘后备急方), edited in the middle of the fourth century by
Ge
Hong. In that book, 43 malaria treatment methods were
recorded, including to shout loudly with a cock in hands, or to eat
two halves of one soy bean with Chinese characters for "sun" and
"moon" written on.
In the 1960s a research program, under the name Project
523, was set up by the Chinese army to find an adequate
treatment for malaria. In 1972, in the course of this research,
Dr. Tu Youyou[4]
discovered artemisinin in the leaves of Artemisia annua (annual
wormwood).
[5]
The drug is named Qinghaosu (Chinese: 青蒿素) in Chinese. It was one of
many candidates then tested by Chinese scientists from a list of
nearly 5000 traditional Chinese medicines for treating
malaria. It was the only one that was
effective, but it was found that it cleared malaria parasites from
their bodies faster than any other drug in history. Artemisia
annua is a common herb and has been found in many parts of the
world, including along the Potomac River, in Washington, D.C. Images of the
original scientific papers are available online[6]
and a book, Zhang Jianfang, "Late Report – Record of Project 523
and the Research and Development of Qinghaosu", Yangcheng Evening
News Publisher 2007(張劍方. 遲到的報告五二三項目與青蒿素研發紀實. 羊城晚報出版社,
2007),[7]
was published in 2006, which records the history of the
discovery.
It remained largely unknown to the rest of the world for about
seven years, until results were published in the Chinese Medical
Journal in 1979.[8]
The report was met with skepticism at first, partly because the
chemical structure of artemisinin, particularly the peroxide, appeared to be too unstable
to be a viable drug.
For many years after the discovery, access to the purified drug
and the plant it was extracted from were restricted by the Chinese
government.[2]
It was not until the late 1970s and early 80s that news of the
discovery reached scientists outside China. The World Health
Organisation (WHO) tried to contact Chinese scientists and
officials to find out more, but drew a blank. Dr Ying Lee, one of
the scientists involved in the research into artemisinin, said the
Chinese distrusted the West.[citation
needed] The Chinese suspected the West
just wanted to exploit the drug and sell it around the world
slightly altered and repatented. The fact that there were several
Americans on the WHO's steering board on malaria and that some were
from the military did not help clear the distrust. It can be noted
Americans had just invested a lot into mefloquine, an analogue of quinine.
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 medications that combine
artemisinin with another malaria drug, in order to reduce the risk
of parasites developing resistance.[9]
In 2011, Dr. Tu was awarded the prestigious
Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical
Research Award for her discovery.[10][5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisinin