Tu Youyou is a Chinese scientist who discovered artemisinin, a drug that has significantly reduced death rates from Malaria. She was awarded with the 2011 Lasker Award in Clinical Medicine and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine, alongside William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura.
Tu was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China on December 30, 1930. A tuberculosis outbreak interrupted her high school education but sparked her interest in medical research. She attended the Beijing Medical University School of Pharmacy from 1951 to 1955. After graduating in 1955, she continued her research on Chinese herbal medicine in the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. During her early years in research, Tu studied Lobelia chinensis, a traditional Chinese medicine to treat schistosomiasis which is an infection of the urinary tract or intestines caused by trematodes and was widespread in the first half of the 20th century in South China. In 1967, during the Vietnam War, a secret drug discovery project named Project 523 was set up for the development of a treatment for malaria. Tu was appointed head of the Project 523 research group in early 1969. At this point, scientists worldwide had screened over 240, 000 compounds to treat malaria without success. Tu had an idea of screening Chinese herbs and by 1971, her team had screened over 2, 000 traditional Chinese recipes and made 380 herbal extracts which were tested on mice. In 1972, they were able to extract a pure compound, later named qinghaosu (青蒿素) or artemisinin, from sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua), which was completely effective in animal tests. As head of the research group, Tu felt she had the responsibility and volunteered to be the first human subject for the drug. She and her group studied the chemical structure and pharmacology of artemisinin. Tu’s work on malaria earned her the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Tu is jokingly referred to as the “Three-Without Scientist” because she is a scientist without a doctor degree (there was no postgraduate education in China then), without studying abroad, and without membership of Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is now regarded as a representative figure of the first generation of Chinese medical workers since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Resources: https://health.sohu.com/20090929/n267089753.shtml http://en.people.cn/n/2015/1006/c90000-8958353.htm Karen Eusebio Masters student
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James McCune Smith James McCune Smith (1813-1865) was born to a woman in slavery; however, due to the gradual abolition policy of New York, he was born free. Although faced with racial discrimination, Smith was able to persevere and become the first African-American to receive a medical degree. Throughout his life, Smith was also a prominent figure in the fight for black equality.
Education James McCune Smith was exceptionally bright academically, and as such was admitted to the New York African Free School around the age of nine, and was chosen to give his first abolitionist speech at age eleven. Despite his reputation as a high-achieving student, Dr. Smith was denied entry into many medical schools due to his race. As such, Smith chose to seek further education outside of America and was admitted to the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Here, he obtained his BA, MA, and MD, graduating top of his class. Upon graduation, Smith became the first African American to receive a medical degree. Before heading home to America, Dr. Smith chose to complete a medical internship in Paris. Practice Upon returning home, Smith was again faced with racial discrimination despite his highly regarded reputation and achievements. Smith was denied the ability to practice medicine in America, as well as the ability to become a member of the American Medical Association. Although met with resistance, Smith was able to open his own practice, until 1846 when he chose to become the lead physician at the Colored Orphan Asylum. Here he cared for the education and health of over 1000 African-American children. Humanitarian Work Throughout his life, Smith dedicated time to educate people and fight for black rights. He was a prominent abolitionist, developed the National Council of the Colored People with Frederick Douglass, and worked to discredit pseudo-scientific justifications of slavery such as the racially-biased 1840 Census that cited high insanity and mortality rates among free blacks as a justification for slavery – without correction for age (his findings on the impact of this statistical error were published in his paper “A Dissertation on the Influence of Climate on Longevity”). Resources Duane, A. M., & Thurston, T. (n.d.). Read AFS Bios. Retrieved August 17, 2020, from https://www.nyhistory.org/web/africanfreeschool/bios/james-mccune-smith.html Mitchell, E. (2019, February 2). Black History Month: Leaders in Microbiology. Retrieved August 17, 2020, from http://blog.eoscu.com/blog/black-history-month-leaders-in-microbiology Morgan, T. M. (2003). The education and medical practice of Dr. James McCune Smith (1813-1865), first black American to hold a medical degree. J Natl Med Assoc., 95(7), 603-614. Rebekah Kukurudz Undergraduate student (Gerstein Lab) Father of bioluminescence Emmett Chappelle (1925-2019), is an astrochemist and a biochemist who received an Associate's degree in electrical engineering at Phoenix College. He then received his Bachelor’s of Science degree in 1950 from the University of California Berkeley. In 1954, Chappelle completed his Master’s Degree at the University of Washington, and, in 1958, received his Ph.D. degree from Stanford University.
Chappelle started his research position at the Research Institute of Advanced Studies in 1958, where he found that having plants in spacecraft provides a safe and breathable air for astronauts and minimizes the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. In 1963, Chappelle started working for Hazleton Laboratories, now known as Covance Inc., in Virginia. His research focused on detecting life on other planets by detecting microbial life in extraterrestrial soils. To do this, Chappelle invented an important assay – the ATP fluorescent assay, which detects living cells using the same proteins that fireflies make to glow. Fireflies make luciferin and luciferase which produces light in the presence of ATP. Even though his assay was not used to discover extraterrestrial lives since no extraterrestrial soil was brought back to Earth, it was used to study microbial life on Earth. In 1966, he continued his work on fluorescence and bioluminescence at the Goddard Space Flight Centre at NASA. He developed a laser-induced fluorescent test that could be used to detect bacterial infections in blood and urine and could also be used to measure crop stress. In 1994, Chappelle received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal. Fun fact: he loved photography and built a darkroom in his house to develop his pictures. He also was an avid reader of criminal and mystery novels. Interesting reads: 1." Fireflies' Light Gins New Uses in Medical and Technical Research.", The New York Times, The New York Times, 1975. 2. Dewayne Washington. “Goddard Scientist Inducted Into National Inventors Hall of Fame.” 2007, https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/chapelle_award.html Ola Salama Masters student Patricia Bath was the first African American to complete a residency in ophthalmology also the first woman to lead a post-graduate training program in ophthalmology. Bath coined the term "Laser phaco" for the process, short for laser PHotoAblative Cataract surgery, and developed the laserphaco probe, a medical device that improves on the use of lasers to remove cataracts, and "for ablating and removing cataract lenses". Patricia was the first African American female doctor to receive a medical patent. She holds five patents in the United States. Three of Bath's five patents relate to the Laserphaco Probe. In 2000, she was granted a patent for a method for using pulsed ultrasound to remove cataracts and in 2003 a patent for combining laser and ultrasound to remove cataracts. In April 2019, Patricia testified in a hearing called the "Trailblazers and Lost Einsteins: Women Inventors and the Future of American Innovation" at the Senate Office Building in Washington D.C., where Bath had shown the gender disparities in the STEM field and a lack of female inventors. Relevant articles:
Bath, P.E., 2003. Combination ultrasound and laser method and apparatus for removing cataract lenses. U.S. Patent 6,544,254. Bath, P.E., Bath Patricia E, 1988. Apparatus for ablating and removing cataract lenses. U.S. Patent 4,744,360. Abdul-Rahman Adamu Bukari PhD student |
AuthorWe are graduate students at the Department of Microbiology, University of Manitoba Archives
October 2023
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