Chinese Nobel laureate ‘cautiously optimistic’ about progress towards lupus treatment
- Tu Youyou won the 2015 Nobel Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of artemisinin, a herbal extract used to treat malaria
- Tu’s team found that artemisinin may also be effective against the autoimmune disease lupus
A team of Chinese scientists led by Nobel laureate Tu Youyou are “cautiously optimistic” they have discovered a possible new treatment for lupus, a little-understood disease that involves a patients’ immune system mistakenly attacking healthy tissues and organs.
Tu, 88, says the first clinical trial proved to effectively treat up to 90 per cent of the patients involved, Xinhua news agency reported. The first of three trials included 14 participants, with numbers to be boosted in subsequent trials.
Lupus erythematosus is a painful and life-changing disease that affects more than five million people worldwide, according to Lupus Foundation of America.
About 10 to 15 per cent of patients die from complications of lupus, depending on which organ is affected. The kidneys are the most commonly affected major organ, says Professor Lau Chak-sing from the University of Hong Kong’s department of medicine, and up to half of Chinese patients with lupus develop kidney disease.
In the 1950s, patients only had a 50 per cent chance of surviving for five to 10 years after diagnosis, but the rate has jumped to more than 90 per cent since the 1980s, Lau says.
“Imagine someone who is 25 [years old] when they are diagnosed with lupus. She has a 10 per cent chance of not being in the world by the age of 35,” Lau says.
But Lau says the survival rate can be lower in developing countries.
Long-term treatment is needed for most patients. Existing treatments can only relieve the symptoms, which include inflammation, swelling, and damage to the skin, joints, kidneys, blood, heart and lungs.
Medication, including steroid hormones and antimalarial drugs, are widely prescribed to suppress lupus symptoms like inflammation.
Tu began her research into lupus soon after she received the 2011 Lasker Award in clinical medicine for her discovery of artemisinin, a herb extract used to treat malaria. The plant extract is used in traditional Chinese medicine. Four years later, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of the anti-malaria compound. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Nobel Prize.
Tu and her team of pharmaceutical chemists had been researching artemisinin resistance when they found that dihydroartemisinin, a derivative of artemisinin, was effective against lupus, Xinhua reported.
“Artemisinin has been seen to be effective in the treatment of lupus. We are cautiously optimistic about the success of the trial,” Tu told Xinhua.
Fifteen leading hospitals in China have signed on to participate in the three-part clinical trial of the new treatment – the first of which took place last year in May. Around 500 domestic and foreign patients signed up for the trial, but after rigorous screening processes only 14 participants were selected.
The second and third trials of Tu’s new treatment will have larger sample sizes, with trials lasting forseven to eight years.
The first clinical trial proved to be effective in treating two main types of lupus – discoid lupus erythematosus and systemic lupus erythematosus – with success rates reaching 90 and 80 per cent, respectively.
If the trials progress smoothly, the new dihydroartemisinin tablets to treat lupus are expected to be on sale as early as 2026, Xinhua reported. But Lau warns the drug is only in the early stages of human testing.
“As far as I know, this agent has not been extensively tested in human patients with lupus,” Lau says. “Until we have data of its efficacy in human cases, we need to apply caution in our appraisal of artemisinin.”
