By Dina Conner
作者：迪娜・康纳
11 December 2015
2015年12月11日
Tu Youyou has become the first female scientist of the People’s Republic of China to receive a Nobel Prize, awarded for her contribution to the fight against malaria, one of the deadliest diseases in human history. Thanks to her discovery of qinghaosu, malaria patients all over the world now have had a greatly increased chance of survival.
屠呦呦成为中华人民共和国首位获得诺贝尔奖的女性科学家，该奖项表彰她在抗击疟疾这一人类历史上最致命疾病方面所做出的贡献。得益于她发现的青蒿素，全球疟疾患者的生存几率得到了极大提升。
Born in 1930, in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, Tu studied medicine at university in Beijing between 1951 and 1955. After graduation, she worked at the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She completed further training courses in traditional Chinese medicine, acquiring a broad knowledge of both traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine.
屠呦呦 1930 年出生于浙江省宁波市，1951 年至 1955 年间在北京的大学攻读医学。毕业后，她进入中医研究院工作，并完成了中医领域的进一步培训课程，从而掌握了中西医结合的广博知识。
Tu’s education was soon to prove very useful. In the 1960s, many people were dying of malaria, and in 1969 Tu became head of a team that intended to find a cure for the disease. She collected over 2,000 traditional Chinese medical recipes for malaria treatment and made hundreds of extracts from different herbs. When they failed to produce any promising results, Tu referred to the ancient books of traditional Chinese medicine again. Inspired by an over 1,600 – year – old text about preparing qinghao extract with cold water, Tu redesigned the experiments and tried extracting the herb at a low temperature in order not to damage its effective part. On 4 October 1971, after 190 failures, she succeeded in making qinghao extract that could treat malaria in mice.
屠呦呦的学识很快便派上了大用场。20 世纪 60 年代，疟疾肆虐夺走许多生命，1969 年，屠呦呦成为研发抗疟药物团队的负责人。她收集了 2000 多个中医治疟药方，提取了数百种草药成分。当这些尝试均未取得理想效果时，屠呦呦再次翻阅古代医书寻找灵感。在一则有着 1600 多年历史的关于用冷水制备青蒿提取物的记载启发下，她重新设计实验，尝试低温提取以避免破坏草药的有效成分。1971 年 10 月 4 日，在经历了 190 次失败后，她终于成功提取出能治愈疟疾小鼠的青蒿提取物。
However, it was hard to produce enough qinghao extract for large trials because research resources were limited. Tu and her team managed to find solutions to the problem. When there was no research equipment, they had to extract herbs using household water containers. They worked day and night and their health began to suffer because of the poor conditions, but they never gave up.
然而，由于研究资源有限，大规模试验所需的青蒿提取物难以足量生产。屠呦呦和她的团队设法找到了解决之道。在没有科研设备的情况下，她们不得不使用家用储水容器来提取草药。她们夜以继日地工作，艰苦的条件开始损害她们的健康，但她们从未放弃。
Even with large amounts of qinghao extract produced, however, they still faced another problem. The trials on patients were likely to be postponed because they did not have sufficient safety data. To speed up the process and ensure its safety, Tu and her team volunteered to test qinghao extract on themselves first.
然而，即便生产出了大量青蒿提取物，他们仍面临另一个难题。由于缺乏足够的安全性数据，针对患者的临床试验可能被迫推迟。为了加快进程并确保安全性，屠呦呦和她的团队主动请缨，率先在自己身上测试青蒿提取物。
The efforts of Tu and her team finally paid off. In November 1972, through trial and error, they successfully discovered qinghaosu—the most effective part of the qinghao extract. As a key part of many malaria medicines, qinghaosu has since benefited about 200 million malaria patients. More than 40 years after its discovery, Tu was eventually awarded a Nobel Prize for her work. In her Nobel Lecture, she encouraged scientists to further explore the treasure house of traditional Chinese medicine and raise it to a higher level. Perhaps the next generation of scientists, drawing on the wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine, will indeed discover more medicines beneficial to global health care.
屠呦呦及其团队的努力终于得到了回报。1972 年 11 月，经过反复试验，他们成功从青蒿提取物中发现了最有效的成分 —— 青蒿素。作为多种抗疟疾药物的核心成分，青蒿素已造福全球约 2 亿疟疾患者。在这一发现问世四十余年后，屠呦呦最终因其贡献荣获诺贝尔奖。她在诺贝尔奖演讲中鼓励科学家们深入挖掘传统中医药的宝库，将其提升至更高境界。或许下一代科学家们汲取中医智慧后，真能发现更多造福全球医疗健康的良药。