artemisinin, qinghao or sweet wormwood

Question 1

what type of plant

Answer 1

small weedy annual herb, a member of the aster (asteraceae) family

Question 2

where is it native to

Answer 2

southern asian (china) and eastern europe
-it is an introduced weed in north american and eastern europe

Question 3

In chine, sweet wormwood (qinghao, or ching-hao, qing ho)

Answer 3

used as an anti malarial agent for more than 2000 years

-this traditional knowledge was completely ignored by western medicinal science until quite recently

Question 4

the active principle

Answer 4

a sesquiterpenoid lactone, known as artemisinin (qinghaosu), was first isolated by chinese chemists in 1971

Question 5

although chemically unrelated to the quinoline alkaloids, artemisinin is as effective as…

Answer 5

chloroquine in killing plasmodium, however, artemisinin activity lasts only a few hours (versus a few days for quinoline drugs.)

Question 6

chinese and western scientists recently have developed semi-synthetic artemisinin derivative ..

Answer 6

that may prove more effective

Question 7

western scientists recently completed trails on a drug combo therapy for combating marlaria

Answer 7

known as artemisinin-class combination therapy (ATC)

Question 8

ATC approach

Answer 8

combines artemisinin with a longer acting synthetic quinolin (lumefantrine or mefloquine)

• ACT trials undertaken in areas where chloroquine-resistance is common (africa, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Peru) demonstrated cure rates exceeding 90% for treatments taken over a three day period (international artemisinin study group 2004)
• aid agencies and governments have now switched to ACT treatment, since traditional chloroquine therapy is largely ineffective in areas where malaria is epidemic (duffy and mutabingwa 2004)

Question 9

sweet wormwood is widely cultivated in..

Answer 9

china, africa, and southeast asia to meet the increased demand for artemisinin

Question 10

artemisinin-class combination therapy is comparatively expensive

Answer 10

• $2.50 per treatment, versus just a few cents for chloroquine
• efforts are underway to develop low -cost synthetic artemisinin, using yeast (saccharomyces cerevisiae) that has been genetically engineered to produce artemisinic acid, an artemisinin precursor. the goal is to produce artemisinin commercially at a cost of 50 cents per dose