纪念青蒿素30周年

2004年底，世卫组织在北京纪念Coartem R10周年，促使我们纪念青蒿素的生日或“生年”，因为青蒿素是中国医药卫生科学家从青蒿中获得的划时代发现和自主创新成果，而且全新结构和独特抗疟活性，从而改写了只有生物硷成分抗疟的历史。作者建议把1975年确定为青蒿素“生年”，是因为从分离纯化得到青蒿素结晶，到鉴定其结构、确定抗疟活性、验证抗疟疗效等延续了整个20世纪70年代，以其中某一事件(如某篇论文发表的年月)来确定青蒿素的“生日”或“生年”，显然都不会获得广泛认同。青蒿素的科学历程告诉我们蒿属几百种植物除青蒿外，尚未发现其它种含有青蒿素：蒿属植物乃至菊科中数以千计的各类化学成分，尚未发现青蒿素以外的成分具有抗疟作用：青蒿广泛分布全球北温带，但是只有中医有用于治疗疟疾经验；只有少数地区青蒿的青蒿素含量高、杂质少，具有工业生产价值，故应该充分认识青蒿道地性对种植业的指导意义，同时采取有力措施保护优良种质资源和生物多样性。防止青蒿素重蹈氯睦发生抗药性复辙应该是我们的优先考虑，开发具有中医药优势和特色的与Coartem^R等效或更好的复方制剂是青蒿素二次开发的重点方向之一。

Artemisinin 30th Anniversary

Dr Henk Bekedam, WHO Representative in China, made a speech in title of Happy Birthday, Coartem (an artemisinin-based combination therapy) on 21 December 2004. It spurs us to monumentalize 30th Anniversary of artemisinin which was directly separated from Artemisia annua (sweet wormwood) and identified its unusual peroxy group in the molecule structure. In succession, Chinese scientists found that artemisinin including its synthetic derivatives artesunate, artemether, and dihydroartemisinin possess a special effective against resistant malaria and severe malaria. Scientific course of artemisinin tells us that only Artemisia annua contains artemisinin; only artemisinin among the chemicals of Artemisia spp. has anti - malarial activity, although sweet wormwood is distributed in most parts of the world and easily grown in almost anywhere, virtually all of the genuine sweet wormwood germ plasm is only in some hills of China and is of industrial value for isolating artemisinin. It is our top - priority to re - develop some new anti -malarial drugs which combined artemisinin and some other herbs under the theories of traditional Chinese medicine for avoidance of resistance due to monotherapies like chloroquine.