Artemisinin-A Gift from Traditional Chinese Medicine to the World – Youyou Tu delivered her Nobel Lecture on 7 December 2015 at Aula Medica, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. She was introduced by Professor Jan Andersson, Adjunct Member of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2015/tu-lecture.html
A number of serious infectious diseases are caused by parasites spread by insects. Malaria is caused by a single-cell parasite that causes severe fever. Traditional Chinese medicine uses sweet wormwood to treat fever. In the 1970s, after studies of traditional herbal medicines, Youyou Tu managed to extract a substance, artemisinin, which inhibits the malaria parasite. Drugs based on artemisinin have led to the survival and improved health of millions of people.