CRI听力:Tu Youyou Receives Nobel Prize in Stockholm

It was a grand ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall.

Professor Hans Forssberg explained the work of chief professor Tu Youyou.

"During the 1960s and 70s, Tu Youyou took part in a major Chinese project to develop anti-malarial drugs. When Tu studied ancient literature, she found that the plant Artemisia annua, or sweet wormwood, recurred in various recipes against fever."

She tested an extract from the plant on infected mice. Some of the malaria parasites died, but the effect varied.

So Tu returned to the literature, and in a 1700 year old book she found a method for obtaining the extract without heating up the plant.

The resulting extract was extremely potent and killed all the parasites. The active component was identified and given the name Artemisinin. It turned out that Arteminsinin attacks the malaria parasite in a unique way.

"The discovery of Artemisinin has led to development of a new drug that has saved the lives of millions of people, halving the mortality rate of malaria during the past 15 years. Your discoveries represent a paradigm shift in medicine, which has not only provided revolutionary therapies for patients suffering from devastating parasitic diseases, but also promoted well-being and prosperity for individuals and society."

When asked about how she felt upon hearing the news she had won the prize, Tu Youyou said what she really cared about is how to prevent resistance to this kind of medicine, not the prize itself.

"Because now there is a resistance problem, there is still a lot of work needing to be done. I care about this, I don't care about other things. What to do with the prize, how will that affect me, I haven't thought about it yet. Neither am I really interested in it."

Tu Youyou is the first Chinese woman scientist to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

All the other laureates in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economy also got their diploma during the ceremony.

And late in the evening Tu Youyou and all the other laureates attended a grand Nobel banquet with the Swedish King and more than 1000 guests.

For CRI, this is Chen Xuefei reporting from Stockholm.