Text/Wen Shi Wangwang
In the 1990s, in the Chisum region of Kenya, Africa, where malaria had killed tens of thousands of people, a mother-to-be infected with malaria was distraught because if treated with previous drugs, even if the expectant mother could survive, the chances of fetal death were very high. Subsequently, after using the Chinese artemisinin antimalarial drug "Ketaixin", the miracle finally appeared, not only the expectant mother recovered quickly, but also the fetus in the abdomen was born healthily. The mother kissed the child's forehead over and over again and named her "Ketaixin" to thank her for the life-saving grace of this Chinese "miracle drug".
In the past few decades, Tu Youyou and his team have discovered artemisinin, which has saved millions of lives and cured more than 200 million people around the world, and frankly Speaking, Tu Youyou and Artemisinin are the pride of Chinese. Today, I will analyze with you how this female scientist who won the Nobel Prize was refined.
Tu Youyou was born in 1930 in a family of Tu in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Following the birth of three sons, the Tu family finally ushered in a treasure "Qianjin", and his father Tu Lianzhi held the infant in his arms and named her "Yo Yo" with love. When the older generation named their children, there was a tradition of "male Chu Ci, female poetry classic", and "yo yo" is from the famous sentence "Yo yo deer singing, eating wild artemisia", and this father must not have imagined that his "yo yo" Qianjin really had an indissoluble relationship with the traditional Chinese medicinal material Artemisia annua.
Since ancient times, Zhejiang has gathered humanities and celebrities. Like the Lin'an Qian family in Zhejiang (Qian Xuesen, Qian Weichang, Qian Sanqiang, Qian Mu, Qian Zhongshu), and the Haining Cha family (Zha Liangzheng's pen name Mu Dan and Zha Liangyong's pen name Jin Yong), Tu Youyou can also be said to be a famous queen. To this day, there is still a copy of the "Yongshang Tu Family Tree" in the Tianyi Pavilion in Ningbo, and the cover is still the inscription of Zuo Zongtang's son.
According to this genealogy, Tu Youyou's ancestors moved from Wuxi County, the capital of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, to Ningbo in the first year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1259), which has been extended for more than 700 years. In the middle, celebrities such as the official Shangshu, the prince Taifu Gift Taibao Tu Yu, the literary scholar and the opera composer Tu Long emerged.
In addition, Tu Youyou's grandfather Yao Yongbai has served as a professor at Shanghai Law School, Fudan University, and Building University. The Yao Mansion at No. 26 Kaiming Street in Ningbo, which is full of the imprint of Tu Youyou's youth, was built by his grandfather in the early years of the Republic of China. The Yao Mansion, with a total area of 2,200 square meters, is now the best-preserved Republic of China building on Enlightened Street.
In addition to Tu Youyou, the celebrities who came out of this Yao mansion also have Tu Youyou's uncle, the famous economist Yao Qingsan (1911-1989), who graduated from Fudan University in 1929, then studied in the Department of Political Economy of the University of Paris, France, and worked in the General Management Office of the Bank of Shanghai in 1931.
Like all families who value education, Tu Youyou and her three older brothers all received a complete and formal school education under the arrangement of their parents. In 1936, at the age of 6, Tu Youyou entered the junior high school of The private Chongde Primary School in Ningbo. In 1941, he attended the high school of Ningbo Private Yanxi Primary School. In 1943, he studied at Ningbo Private Qizhen Middle School and in 1945 at Ningbo Private Yongjiang Girls' Junior High School.
From 1946 to 1947, Tu Youyou was suspended from school for two years due to tuberculosis, and in 1948, after her condition improved, she entered the Ningbo Private Xiaoshi Middle School. It is worth mentioning that this century-old famous school, founded in 1912, with the motto of "faithfulness and respect" - Xiaoshi Middle School, has so far produced 15 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Under the influence of her family, Tu Youyou has loved reading since she was a child. In the hearts of teachers and classmates, she is a low-key, beautiful and quiet-looking girl, dressed plainly, with twisted braids, and serious learning. In high school, Tu Youyou's biology achievements were particularly outstanding. Every time the biology teacher gave a lecture in class, Tu Youyou listened to it endlessly.
Once, the teacher jokingly said: "If other students can be as diligent and inquisitive as Tu Youyou, and listen carefully to the lectures, I will be happy even if I work hard." In the summer of 1951, Tu Youyou graduated from high school and was successfully admitted to the Department of Pharmacy of Peking University School of Medicine, Tu Youyou left her hometown in Ningbo, where she had lived for 21 years, and went all the way north to study.
In the early years of the Republic of China, this was an era of frequent wars and material scarcity, Tu Youyou, as a woman, was born in a family of scholars, her father was enlightened, her mother was loving, and she received a formal and complete school education, she was undoubtedly lucky. At the same time, she became a member of the first batch of female university students in New China, saving millions of lives around the world through the extraction of artemisinin. This also confirms that women play an irreplaceable and important role in national construction and national development.
After graduating from Peking University, Tu Youyou was immediately assigned to the Institute of Chinese Medicine of the Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine of the Ministry of Health to work in the scientific research of phytochemistry. Beginning in 1969, Tu Youyou joined a foreign aid emergency military project led by the State Science and Technology Commission and the General Logistics Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, code-named "523", and began to carry out research on malaria prevention and control drugs.
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by malaria parasites and transmitted by mosquitoes as early as 500,000 years ago. In China, it is commonly known as "pendulum" and "cold and fever". Known as "miasma" or "swamp fever" in medieval Italy, malaria was so prevalent during the Roman period that there was a local term for "Roman fever", and the decline of the Roman Empire was most likely related to it.
Typical symptoms of malaria infection include fever, chills, vomiting and headache, which may also cause jaundice, epilepsy, coma, pulmonary edema, liver and kidney failure anemia and even death. In addition to mosquito infections, plasmodiums can also be infected through blood transfusions. In 1995, there was a serious case of nosocomial infection in Taipei Veterans General Hospital, which caused 4 patients to die of falciparum malaria due to improper blood transfusion.
In the second half of 1971, Tu Youyou began to try to use ether to prepare artemisia annua extract, that is, artemisinin, after 191 tests, it was observed in the laboratory that the inhibition rate of artemisinin on rat malaria and monkey malaria parasite reached 100%.
Recalling that difficult period, Tu Youyou's husband Li Tingzhao was very distressed about his wife: "At that time, she was full of only artemisia annua, full of alcohol and ether in the laboratory, and also had toxic hepatitis." "Immersed in the cause of Chinese medicine, as a guinea pig to try medicine, in addition to Tu Youyou, the researchers who worked together also had dizziness, swelling, nose bleeding, skin allergies and other reactions."
Like many scholars who are devoted to their careers, Tu Youyou is a solid and thick-lined "female man" in life, and she is not very good at taking care of herself and not doing housework. Tu Youyou herself said: "To make the trivial things around me become orderly, I still don't have a bright light, after starting a family, buying vegetables, buying things and other things are basically done by my old Li." The old Li in Tu Youyou's mouth is her lover Li Tingzhao.
The love between Li Tingzhao and Tu Youyou is a good story, the two are fellow villagers, and they were once classmates of Ningbo Xiaoshi Middle School. In 1951, the two went to Beijing Foreign Chinese School and Peking University to study. From 1954 to 1960, Li Tingzhao was sent to study at the Leningrad Institute of Technology in the Soviet Union and obtained a master's degree. In 1963, the two officially entered the marriage hall. After marriage, Tu Youyou had no distractions and basically spent all her energy on work, and her husband Li Tingzhao not only did not complain about her, but also understood and supported Tu Youyou very well and took care of all the housework.
From 1965 to 1968, Tu Youyou's two daughters were born successively, and in order to successfully complete the research mission sent to Hainan, they sent the eldest daughter to the full daycare class of the nursery, and the younger daughter to the grandparents in Ningbo to take care of. "Give you the task, and for us at that time, we will work hard to complete the national task. As long as there is a task, the child throws it away and leaves. Speaking of the past, Tu Youyou seemed very calm.
Although the roles in the family are different, the common theme of Li Tingzhao and Tu Youyou after marriage is dedication to the country, which is also the most admirable place for the older generation of scientific researchers.
Malaria, AIDS and cancer are listed by the World Health Organization as the world's top three deaths. The advent of artemisinin has revived the dangerous and deadly patients with cerebral malaria, cured chloroquine-resistant malaria infections who are on the verge of death without medicine, and saved countless poor patients who could not afford expensive antimalarial drugs.
"This is not only a personal honor awarded to me, but also a reward and encouragement to all the chinese scientists." Tu Youyou said this in her award speech. It can be said that Tu Youyou's award for China and Chinese has created and created history, and also allowed the ancient "Chinese grass" to release the magical power that amazes the world. Tu Youyou's success has a great demonstration effect, which is bound to inspire more Chinese researchers to climb the peak and achieve new achievements.