Discovery of the Anti-Malarial Activity of Artemisinin
The devastating impact of Malaria has spurred intense research efforts during the last centuries, leading to a series of Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine. Ronald Ross, a British army surgeon working in India was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1902* after he discovered malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes. Charles Laveran, a French physician working in an Algerian hospital received the Nobel Prize in 1907* after he discovered the existence of parasites inside the red blood cells of malaria-infected patients. He went on to show that quinine treatment eliminated the parasites from the blood. The Swiss chemist Paul Herman Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1948* for his discovery of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods including mosquitoes. Soon thereafter, DDT a highly efficient insecticide, was widely used to exterminate mosquitoes, with the hope of reducing the transmission of the parasite between individuals. Together with the newly developed anti-malarial drug, chloroquine, this approach was initially very effective in reducing the incidence of the disease in many countries. However, after only a few decades, mosquitoes developed resistance towards DDT and concomitantly, serious concerns were raised regarding the impact of the insecticide on the environment. Moreover, the durability of chloroquine was also called into question as resistant strains of P falciparium emerged and spread. Both of these factors contributed to the widespread increase in mortality from malaria during the 1960’s.