Photo: Bengt Nyman, CC BY 2.0 — Source
Chinese pharmaceutical chemist who discovered artemisinin, a compound extracted from sweet wormwood that became the most effective treatment for malaria. Working as part of a secret military project during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, she drew on traditional Chinese medicine texts to identify the plant and then developed the extraction process. Her discovery has saved millions of lives, particularly in the developing world. She received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, becoming the first Chinese Nobel laureate in a natural science and the first without a doctoral degree or foreign training.
Source: Nobel Prize