imatfaal Posted October 5, 2015 Posted October 5, 2015 The fight against parasitic disease. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015 was divided, one half jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura "for thier discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites" and the other half to Youyou Tu "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria". http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2015/press.pdf Here's another picture of Youyou Tu ( at the front of the queue for personal pronouns?) - she is apparently in the United States at present and DOESNT know she has won the Nobel Prize. If you see You tell her! Si tu vois Tu lui dire! 3
CharonY Posted October 5, 2015 Posted October 5, 2015 I just read her wiki article. Her achievements are quite astonishing considering that China had not postgraduate degrees then and she never studied abroad.
imatfaal Posted October 7, 2015 Author Posted October 7, 2015 Her dedication and work ethic are a bit scary to be honest - but then I suppose that is what is needed to get Nobel prizes and really make a difference in your chosen field
CharonY Posted October 7, 2015 Posted October 7, 2015 Well, other Nobel prize winners clearly had it easier. In addition to the training limitation, the system was just incredibly bad. After graduation it took 25 years to promote her to researcher status and only 21 years after that (age 71) she was allowed to supervise doctoral students. Further, her work was published first at age 47 anonymously (which was typical as self-promotion and similar things were not quite possible after the cultural revolution), quite a sharp contrast to what normally happens (i.e. you scream any finding as loudly as possible at any conference you get to.... And then you have to consider that she carried out much of her work during the turmoil of the cultural revolution with all the dangers of being branded an intellectual carried. Not to mention that she tried out extracts on herself first. Quite a remarkable that, to my shame, I had no knowledge of.
Strange Posted October 7, 2015 Posted October 7, 2015 (edited) Here's another picture of Youyou Tu ( at the front of the queue for personal pronouns?) - she is apparently in the United States at present and DOESNT know she has won the Nobel Prize. If you see You tell her! Si tu vois Tu lui dire! From http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=21522: Tu Youyou's surname is unusual, Tú 屠, which means "butcher; slaughter; massacre". Her given name, Yōuyōu 呦呦, means "bark of a deer"; it comes from an ode in the Poetry Classic, Lù míng 鹿鸣 ("The Deer Cries"). Her given name superficially resembles that of the famous cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, but his given name literally means "friend-friend", while his surname means "horse": Mǎ Yǒuyǒu 马友友. The blog post is worth reading for some funny comments regarding ambiguity. Edited October 7, 2015 by Strange
imatfaal Posted October 8, 2015 Author Posted October 8, 2015 I know a family called Slaughter - I will tell them that the Chinese branch of the family has a Nobel Prize winner. Well, other Nobel prize winners clearly had it easier. In addition to the training limitation, the system was just incredibly bad. After graduation it took 25 years to promote her to researcher status and only 21 years after that (age 71) she was allowed to supervise doctoral students. Further, her work was published first at age 47 anonymously (which was typical as self-promotion and similar things were not quite possible after the cultural revolution), quite a sharp contrast to what normally happens (i.e. you scream any finding as loudly as possible at any conference you get to.... And then you have to consider that she carried out much of her work during the turmoil of the cultural revolution with all the dangers of being branded an intellectual carried. Not to mention that she tried out extracts on herself first. Quite a remarkable that, to my shame, I had no knowledge of. The burdens of working under the terror of the Cultural revolution (being in the field away from home for so long that her daughter failed to recognise her upon her return) had terrible parallels with a great novel I read called The Three Body Problem. Amazon have it very cheap on kindle and whilst the sciencey bits annoyed in places the depiction of a female scientist working in the throes of the revolution and afterwards were most compelling.
CharonY Posted October 8, 2015 Posted October 8, 2015 (edited) I have heard abou the novel. Maybe time to pick it up. Tu Youyou's surname is unusual, Tú 屠, which means "butcher; slaughter; massacre". That is strange, I thought it was derived from a city name. Edit: talked to a native speaker, apparently both could be true. It is a rare name, though, with less than 0.2% of the population carrying it. Edited October 8, 2015 by CharonY
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