All of us have seen at least one instance at home or at the workplace where a greedy person usurps the fruits of another's hard work. This happened in the lives of common people like us. But have you ever heard of a world-award-winning genius doing that? In fact, there are many such examples. But because such greedy people neatly hide their deeds from the world or such events recede in the course of time, we do not know about them. Something similar happened in the case of scientists who discovered 'streptomycin', an antibiotic against a terrible disease like TB. We are going to track that in this article.
Antibiotics have been used to treat infections for thousands of years, although until about the last century, people were unaware that bacteria cause infections. Some early civilizations used various moulds and plant extracts to treat infections; for example, the ancient Egyptians applied bread mould to infected wounds. Even so, until the 20th century, the main causes of death in developed countries were bacterial infections that we now consider easy to treat, such as pneumonia and diarrhea.
Scientists began to observe the effects of antibacterial chemicals only at the end of the 19th century
In 1909, German doctor Paul Ehrlich discovered that a chemical called arsphenamine was an effective treatment for syphilis. It became the first modern antibiotic, although Ehrlich himself called his discovery "chemotherapy," the use of a chemical to treat disease.
Selman Waksman, a Ukrainian-American inventor and microbiologist, made an important contribution to the field of antibiotics over 30 years after his initial discoveries.
During his lifetime, Waksman had successfully identified and isolated more than 20 antibiotics. It was Waksman himself who first introduced the term "antibiotics" to describe these remarkable substances that combat bacterial infections.
His significant achievements in the field led to his well-deserved recognition and acclaim. He received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of streptomycin. However, he wasn't the one who found it.
Streptomycin was discovered soon after the discovery of Penicillin. The mass production of penicillin during World War II spurred interest in other medically important soil microbes. Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming. Although the discovery of penicillin was an accidental one, streptomycin was identified after many years of careful research and medical development.
In the late 1930s, Waksman tried to copy Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin by identifying antimicrobial agents produced by soil microorganisms that, unlike penicillin, would be active against gram-negative organisms, with the help of nearby Merck Laboratories. Waksman had early success with actinomycin and streptothricin, but they proved too toxic for humans. Then, in 1943, Waksman had his laboratory group focusing on the Actinomycetes when William Feldman and Corwin Hinshaw, from the Mayo Clinic, offered a clinical trial opportunity for an anti-tuberculosis drug. Waksman assigned this task to his recently graduated student, Albert Schatz.
Schatz discovered that a substance produced by two strains of Actinomyces griseus was active against Escherichia coli.
This was the eleventh attempt he made to find an antibiotic against gram-negative organisms. Later on, Schatz proved that it exhibits antibacterial activity against a wide variety of other gram-negative organisms as well as both non-virulent and virulent strains of Mycobacterium TB. This way Schatz discovered Streptomycin. But his results were confirmed by Elizabeth Bugie, a master’s student of biochemistry in Waksman’s lab at Rutgers University.
Streptomycin’s discovery basically involves three people, i.e., Selman Waksman, Albert Schatz, and Elizabeth Bugie. But only Waksman received the greatest recognition in history, as he alone won the Nobel Prize for streptomycin’s discovery in 1952.
When Waksman and Schatz patented streptomycin, Bugie's name was not included on the application, as they claimed that it wouldn't matter because one day she would get married and have children. After streptomycin was proven effective against tuberculosis, it became a very profitable discovery, from which Waksman later began to collect royalties.
This led to widespread publicity for Schatz and Waksman. This led to a widely publicized dispute between Schatz and Waksman. Waksman would receive 10% of the royalties following the settlement of the lawsuit, while Schatz would receive 3% as well as damages for lost royalties. The rest of the laboratory shared the remaining 7% of the royalties, of which Bugie received 0.2%.
This whole sequence of events suggests that the desire for fame and success compels even a scientist like Waksman to take unethical steps.
Later on, many trials and experiments were done to check streptomycin’s efficacy against TB. Then it was known that, though this drug showed positive results against TB, it couldn’t be used alone as bacteria started showing resistance to it. Hence, to treat TB effectively, streptomycin was given in combination with other drugs.
References:
1. Long, T. (2010, October 19). Oct. 19, 1943: A Wonderful Discovery, and a Helluva Row. WIRED. https://www.wired.com/2010/10/1019streptomycin/
2. Society, M. (n.d.). The history of antibiotics. Microbiology Society. https://microbiologysociety.org/membership/membership-resources/outreach-resources/antibiotics-unearthed/antibiotics-and-antibiotic-resistance/the-history-of-antibiotics.html
3. The Aftermath of Penicillin. (n.d.). http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wong/BOT135/Lect23.htm