What Chinese Scientist’s Nobel Win Says About Science In China

As China basks in its first Nobel Prize in science, few places seem as elated, or bewildered, by the honour as the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

Scientists like He Zuoxiu, a member of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences, say that the ancient pharmacopoeia should be mined, but the underlying theories that identified these herbs should have been discarded long ago.

Excellent interview in the New York Times about the Nobel Prize in Medicine given to Prof.

He points out that Tu succeeded only because she tossed out the methods used by traditional Chinese medicine and applied modern biological principles to her work – something that China itself has been doing.

According to the report, on May 23, 1967, Mao Zedong assigned Tu to “Project 523” to find an effective treatment for malaria, which at the time was a major cause of death in tropical provinces in southern China. They used this information to create the antimalarial drug. Tu’s achievement should be an encouragement to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) universities that have struggled to gain world recognition for their scientific work.

The award has given pride to Chinese medical experts who believe in traditional medicine.

The Nobel committee has in fact said that the award was not honoring Chinese medicine, but for how Tu employed scientific procedures to extract the active ingredient and produce the chemical drug that now saves millions of lives.

A comment in the Chinese Communist Party-run People’s Daily described Tu as an outspoken person who does not connect well with others.