BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- An opera about Tu Youyou, the Chinese pharmacologist who received the country's first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, was staged at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on Saturday and Sunday.

The play tells of how Tu Youyou and her team managed to extract a substance from artemisinin that proved effective in reducing malaria mortality, which won her the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Tu, born in 1930, suffered from a lung disease when she was young, but Chinese medicine saved her life and she developed a keen interest in traditional Chinese medicine, dedicating her life as a pharmacologist to healing the sick.

Tu started her work at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. She later served as head of the "Anti-malarial Chinese Herbal Medicine Group." With help from her colleagues, she successfully extracted artemisinin after three years of hard work.

The opera was performed by the Ningbo Performing Arts Group Corp.

"The opera aims to help young people understand that as long as one's personal goal chimes with that of the country, one can better realize the value of life," said Zou Jianhong, chairman of the company.

Tu won China's top science award in 2017 for her outstanding contributions to scientific and technological innovation.