Tu Youyou has been awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology 2015 for Medicine.
The award recognises her work in discovering in a therapy for treating malaria. With her team, she looked to traditional medicine for an effective treatment as an alternative to quinine & chloroquine as these were becoming less effective at controlling the disease.
The answer was found in an extract from the wormwood plant, & resulted in the isolation of artemisinin which is still used in combination with other chemicals to treat this life threatening disease.
Tu Youyou tested the medicine on herself to ensure it was safe for humans. She is the first woman from China to have won this award, & it has been a long time coming. The discovery was made in 1972, & the drug has saved many lives, especially in Africa.