Tu Youyou Awarded Nobel Prize
6 October 2015
This year's Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Tu Youyou (co-winner), whose research led to the discovery of artemisinin, a crucial new treatment for malaria. Artemisinin has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and has led to improved health for millions of people. Over 200 million people around the world get malaria each year, and about 600,000 die from it. Artemisinin has become a vital part of the treatment for malaria, and is thought to save 100,000 lives a year in Africa alone.
Tu Youyou, a committed and patient scientist, was born in Ningbo, China, on 30 December 1930, and graduated from Peking University Medical School in 1955. After she graduated, she worked at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing. In 1967, the Chinese government formed a team of scientists with the objective of discovering a new treatment for malaria, and Tu Youyou was among the first researchers chosen. In the beginning, Tu Youyou went to Hainan, where malaria was more common, to study malaria patients. In 1969, she became the head of the project in Beijing, and decided to review ancient Chinese medical texts to find traditional botanical treatments for the disease. Her team examined over 2,000 old medical texts, and evaluated 280,000 plants for their medical properties. From their research, they discovered and tested 380 distinct ancient Chinese medical treatments that showed promise in the fight against malaria.
One medical text from the fourth century suggested using the extract from sweet wormwood to treat a fever. Tu's team tested a collection of dried wormwood leaves but found no effect. They then tried boiling fresh wormwood, and using the liquid obtained from this to treat malaria, but this did not work either. Their project got stuck. However, Tu Youyou would not acknowledge defeat. She analysed the medical texts again, and by chance, she found one sentence suggesting a different way to treat the wormwood. She concluded that boiling the sweet wormwood apparently destroyed its medical properties. Using a lower temperature to draw out the extract, she found a substance that worked. After failing more than 190 times, the team finally succeeded in 1971. Tu Youyou and her team members even insisted on testing the medicine on themselves to make sure that it was safe. Later, the medicine was tested on malaria patients, most of whom recovered. This medicine, which was called artemisinin, soon became a standard treatment for malaria.
According to Tu Youyou, the discovery of artemisinin was a team effort. Upon hearing that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize, she said, “The honour is not just mine. There is a team behind me, and all the people of my country. This success proves the great value of traditional Chinese medicine. It is indeed an honour for China's scientific research and Chinese medicine to be spread around the world.”
John Snow Defeats “King Cholera”
Cholera used to be one of the most feared diseases in the world, until a British doctor John Snow, showed how it could be overcome. This illness causes severe diarrhoea, dehydration, and even death. In the early 19th century, when an outbreak of cholera hit Europe, millions of people died from the disease. As a young doctor, John Snow became frustrated because no one knew how to prevent or treat cholera. In time, he rose to become a famous doctor, and even attended to Queen Victoria when she gave birth. However, he never lost his desire to destroy cholera once and for all.
In general, doctors in those days had two contradictory theories to explain how cholera spread. One theory was that bad air caused the disease. The other was that cholera was caused by an infection from germs in food or water. Snow subscribed to the second theory. It was correct, but he still needed proof. Consequently, when an outbreak of cholera hit London in 1854, Snow began to investigate. He discovered that in two particular streets the cholera outbreak was so severe that more than 500 people died in ten days. He was determined to find out why.
Snow began by marking on a map the exact places where all those who died had lived. There were multiple deaths near the water pump in Broad Street (especially house numbers 16, 37, 38, and 40). However, some households (such as 20 and 21 Broad Street, and 8 and 9 Cambridge Street) had had no deaths. These people worked in the pub at 7 Cambridge Street. They had been given free beer and so had not drunk the water from the pump. Snow suspected that the water pump was to blame. What is more, in another part of London, a woman and her daughter had died of cholera after moving away from Broad Street. It seemed that the woman liked the water from the pump so much that she had it delivered to her house every day. As a result of this evidence, John Snow was able to announce that the pump water carried cholera germs. Accordingly, he had the handle of the pump removed so that it could not be used. Through this intervention, the disease was stopped in its tracks.
The truth was that the water from the Broad Street pump had been infected by waste. Moreover, Snow was later able to show a link between other cases of cholera and the different water companies in London. Some companies sold water from the River Thames that was polluted by raw waste. The people who drank this water were much more likely to get cholera than those who drank pure or boiled water.
Through Snow's tireless efforts, water companies began to sell clean water, and the threat of cholera around the world saw a substantial decrease. However, cholera is still a problem. Each year, millions of people around the world get cholera and many die from it. Fortunately, we now know how to prevent cholera, thanks to the work of John Snow. Moreover, in his use of maps and statistics, Snow transformed the way scientists study diseases. For this reason, Snow is considered the father of modern epidemiology.
Chemical versus Organic Farming
Chemical pesticides and artificial fertilisers have been in widespread use in farming since the middle of the 20th century. When they were first introduced, many farmers welcomed them as a great way to fight crop disease and increase production. Over time, however, what some scientists have found is that their long-term use can sometimes harm both the land and people's health.
For example, pesticides can damage the land by killing not only harmful bacteria and insects, but also helpful ones. In addition, these chemicals can stay in the soil and underground water sources for a long time. This affects the crops grown on the land and, in turn, the animals and humans who digest them. Many people worry that these chemicals may make them ill and even cause cancer. In fact, some pesticides like DDT have been prohibited in most countries because of the damage they cause to people and the environment. As for chemical fertilisers, crops grown with them usually grow too fast to be rich in nutrition. They may look beautiful on the outside, but inside there is usually more water than essential minerals, and they often have less flavour as well.
As an alternative, some farmers have switched to organic farming, and many customers have turned to organic food when they shop at the local grocery. Organic farming is simply farming without using any chemicals. Organic farmers focus on keeping their soil rich and free of disease through natural means. For example, many organic farmers use natural waste from animals as fertiliser. This makes the soil in their fields richer in minerals. It also keeps the air, soil, water, and crops free of chemicals.
Organic farmers also use many other methods to produce rich soil. They often change the kind of crop grown in each field every year. For instance, they may grow corn or wheat in a field one year, and then grow beans there the next. Why different crops are grown is because they put important minerals back into the ground, making it ready for the next batch of crops. Organic farmers also plant diverse crops that use different depths of soil to help keep it rich. For example, peanuts grow on the ground's surface, but many other vegetables put down deep roots. The goal of using different organic farming methods is to grow good food while avoiding damage to the environment or to people's health.
Some people would prefer to stop the use of man-made chemicals in agriculture entirely. What keeps them from doing so is the fact that chemical farming serves the high demand for food around the world. Organic farming is nowhere near able to meet that need. Therefore, there is still a long way to find a suitable solution that puts sufficient food on the dinner table while keeping people and the environment as healthy as possible.
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