Tu Youyou

Tu Youyou was born in 1930 in Ningbo, China. Tu Youyou's background is described as Chinese. Growing up, the family was middle class — a literate Ningbo household; the fifth child and only daughter. Found the malaria cure in a 4th-century Chinese text; tested it on herself before the patients.

Born

1930 · Ningbo, China

Roots

Chinese

Family

Middle class

A literate Ningbo household; the fifth child and only daughter.

Education

Beijing Medical College (pharmacology)

Started with

Two years of tuberculosis

The illness that interrupted school at 16 turned her toward medicine.

Affiliations & societies

None documented.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 1969 · age 39
   Project 523

   Named head of a research group in China's secret wartime malaria program; screens more than 2,000 traditional remedies.

2. 1971 · age 41
   The Ge Hong clue

   A 4th-century handbook prescribes sweet wormwood steeped cold; switching to low-temperature extraction yields sample 191 — fully effective in mice.

3. 1972 · age 42
   Tests it on herself

   She and two colleagues take the extract before patient trials begin.

4. 1977 · age 47
   Published anonymously

   The artemisinin work appears without author names, per the era's rules.

5. 2015 · age 84
   Nobel Prize in Medicine

   A "three withouts" scientist — no doctorate, no study abroad, no academician title. Artemisinin therapies are credited with millions of lives saved.