The discovery of artemisinin (qinghaosu) and gifts from Chinese medicine

Abstract

Tue describes working with investigators on the extraction and isolation of constitutents with possible antimalarial activities from Chinese herbal materials. During the first stage of their work, they investigated more than 2,000 Chinese herb preparations and identified 640 hits that had possible antimalarial activities. More than 380 extracts obtained from ~200 Chinese herbs were evaluated against a mouse model of malaria. The turning point came when an Artemisia annua L. extract showed a promising degree of inhibition against parasite growth.