An Over Four Millennium Story Behind Qinghaosu (Artemisinin)-A Fantastic Antimalarial Drug from a Traditional Chinese Herb

Abstract

This article reviews the discovery and the further studies on qinghaosu and its derivatives or analogs over the last decades in the fields of medicinal chemistry and some pharmacology research, with an emphasis on the progress achieved in China. Keywords: artemisinin, chemistry, structure determination, synthesis, pharmacology, antimalarial, mechanism of action