Inventions & Discoveries · Medicine and health

Artemisinin

1972 · 20th century · Also known as qinghaosu

Artemisinin is a drug against malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum, discovered in China in 1972 by Tu Youyou in the leaves of sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua). It came out of Project 523, a secret military programme of the People's Liberation Army set up in 1967 that screened a list of nearly 2,000 traditional Chinese medicines; Tu said she was guided by a handbook of 340 CE by Ge Hong. Artemisinin-based combination therapies have become the standard treatment for malaria worldwide, and Tu shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery.

Artemisinin
Image: Jorge Ferreira · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

On the inventions tree

First known
1972
Where
China
Credited to
Tu Youyou · People's Republic of China
Built onQuinineby 1632

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See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Artemisinin. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/artemisinin
MLA
“Artemisinin.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/artemisinin. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Artemisinin.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/artemisinin.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Artemisinin’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/artemisinin (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻