Artemisinin is the endoperoxide-containing plant natural product used to treat malaria, a deadly disease that has killed 445,000 people in 2016 - 90% of these deaths were in Africa. The current industrial production of artemisinin employs a semi-synthetic approach, which involves the microbial fermentation of yeast containing the plant genes to produce the biosynthetic precursor, artemisinic acid, followed by four chemical transformations to yield artemisinin.
