WRAIR investigators pioneering work on an exciting new class of antimalarial compounds

The history of using artemisinins for malarial like conditions dates back more than 2000 years to when it was a part of the herbal arsenal utilized in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a treatment for malarial like conditions. Artemisinins are derived from the sweet wormwood plant Artemisia annua which not only grows in China but also just down the road from WRAIR along the Potomac River. Revival of the use of artemisinins in the era of modern medicine began in China in the 1970’s with the first purified crystalline artemisinins produced in Shandon Province in 1972.

Although lead author Dr. Qigui Li received his MD and pharmacology degrees in China in the early 1980s, he did not become aware of artemisinins until the late 1980s, while a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Dr. Li stated that “the Chinese had first published their findings in the Chinese Medical Journal in 1979, but when the WHO approached Chinese scientists for samples of the plant so they could conduct their own assays they were rebuffed. In retrospect, we can appreciate that this was just after the Nixon era, Mao Tse-tung was still in power, and the Chinese were very skeptical about sharing information for fear it would be utilized by the commercial pharmaceutical companies in the West for monetary gain.” Since joining the WRAIR team in 1991, Dr. Li has performed or supervised the majority of the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics on all of the artemisinin derivatives.

In December of 2005, the World Health Organization stated, for the first time, artemisinins are the first line of therapy for most cases of malarial illnesses. Artemisinins are also being investigated as antiviral and anticancer agents.

Dr. Dr. Qigui Li is currently the senior staff Pharmacologist and Section Chief of Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics in the Department of Pharmacology, Division of Experimental Therapeutics at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He has received the WHO Research Fellowship Award, the NRC Research Associate Fellowship Award, and Best Investigator/PhD. Candidate from Schering Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Li received his Pharmacology/MD degree from Tongji Medical University, Wuhan, PR China in 1983 and his PhD in pharmacokinetics from the Free University of Berlin, West Berlin, FR Germany in 1989. Following the PhD in pharmacokinetics, Dr. Li completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Free University of Berlin in 1991. He joined WRAIR in 1991.