Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century by Morton A. Meyers Page A
Authors: Morton A. Meyers
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co-discoverer of streptomycin.” Schatz received an immediate lump sum of $125,000, a public statement by Rutgers officially acknowledging him as codiscoverer of streptomycin, and 3 percent of the royalties. Waksman shared 7 percent of his 17 percent royalty with the other laboratory workers at Rutgers. With half of the rest of the money he started the philanthropic Foundation for Micro-biology, thus reducing his own portion to 5 percent. Waksman took pains to include twelve laboratory assistants, clerks, and even the man who washed out the laboratory glassware. The settlement was broadcast on page one of the New York Times and in Time magazine.
Schatz felt vindicated and hoped to use the money to continue in microbiology research. But, following the notoriety, the doors of top-grade laboratories were closed to him. No other department head wanted to hire an aggrieved “whistle-blower,” as such a contentious, publicly aired episode had been hitherto virtually unknown within the scientific community. The establishment closed ranks. He was, in effect, blacklisted.
In 1952, two years after the settlement, Waksman became the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, even though Nobel regulations allow up to three people to share it. Schatz waged an unsuccessful campaign to obtain a share of the Nobel Prize. Burton Feldman, a historian of Nobel awards, uncharitably refers to Waksman as getting the Nobel “for not discovering streptomycin.” 12
The public dispute was tragic for both men. Waksman, heartbroken, regarded the year 1950 as “the darkest one in my whole life” because of the perceived betrayal by Schatz and the horrible publicity brought about by the whole affair. 13 Schatz, a penniless student, was atleast financially recompensed but was deprived of what he felt to be his rightful share of the Nobel Prize and of career possibilities. Years later, Waksman would quote Dubos: “In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.” 14
Schatz had to wait fifty years to be awarded Rutgers’ highest honor, the Rutgers Medal, in 1994 as codiscoverer of streptomycin.
Meanwhile, in the same year that Waksman received the Nobel Prize, 1952, his discovery was eclipsed by the introduction of the chemical isoniazid (often called INH), a significantly more effective treatment for tuberculosis, which could be taken orally. With the further discovery that drugs given in combination increased efficacy, the annual death rate from TB per 100,000 population in the United States fell from 50 to 7.1 by 1958.
Serendipity and Cyclosporin
The search for new antibiotics and the microbes that produce them led to the serendipitous discovery of another breakthrough drug in 1978. The Sandoz laboratory in Basel, Switzerland, tested a fungus found in a soil sample from Norway for antibiotic activity. None was found. But one of their enterprising biochemists, Dr. Jean-François Borel, found that it could suppress immunity in cell cultures. An immunosuppresant, a drug that interferes with the body's rejection of foreign tissues, had been unearthed: cyclosporin. This led to the explosive development of human-organ transplant surgery, initially in kidney transplantation, and then in more difficult surgery, such as liver, heart-lung, pancreas, and bone marrow transplants.
The problem with antibiotics is that bacteria reproduce at an astonishing speed and, like all organisms, mutate. As a result, new strains emerge that are resistant to the drugs. The more frequently antibiotics are used, the more quickly bacteria seem to outwit them. In the United States by the year 2005, physicians in practice wrote 130million prescriptions per year for antibiotics, as many as half of which were unnecessary. Beyond this, at least 30 percent of all hospitalized patients received one or more courses of therapy with antibiotics. One result of this widespread use is the continuous
Schatz felt vindicated and hoped to use the money to continue in microbiology research. But, following the notoriety, the doors of top-grade laboratories were closed to him. No other department head wanted to hire an aggrieved “whistle-blower,” as such a contentious, publicly aired episode had been hitherto virtually unknown within the scientific community. The establishment closed ranks. He was, in effect, blacklisted.
In 1952, two years after the settlement, Waksman became the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, even though Nobel regulations allow up to three people to share it. Schatz waged an unsuccessful campaign to obtain a share of the Nobel Prize. Burton Feldman, a historian of Nobel awards, uncharitably refers to Waksman as getting the Nobel “for not discovering streptomycin.” 12
The public dispute was tragic for both men. Waksman, heartbroken, regarded the year 1950 as “the darkest one in my whole life” because of the perceived betrayal by Schatz and the horrible publicity brought about by the whole affair. 13 Schatz, a penniless student, was atleast financially recompensed but was deprived of what he felt to be his rightful share of the Nobel Prize and of career possibilities. Years later, Waksman would quote Dubos: “In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.” 14
Schatz had to wait fifty years to be awarded Rutgers’ highest honor, the Rutgers Medal, in 1994 as codiscoverer of streptomycin.
Meanwhile, in the same year that Waksman received the Nobel Prize, 1952, his discovery was eclipsed by the introduction of the chemical isoniazid (often called INH), a significantly more effective treatment for tuberculosis, which could be taken orally. With the further discovery that drugs given in combination increased efficacy, the annual death rate from TB per 100,000 population in the United States fell from 50 to 7.1 by 1958.
Serendipity and Cyclosporin
The search for new antibiotics and the microbes that produce them led to the serendipitous discovery of another breakthrough drug in 1978. The Sandoz laboratory in Basel, Switzerland, tested a fungus found in a soil sample from Norway for antibiotic activity. None was found. But one of their enterprising biochemists, Dr. Jean-François Borel, found that it could suppress immunity in cell cultures. An immunosuppresant, a drug that interferes with the body's rejection of foreign tissues, had been unearthed: cyclosporin. This led to the explosive development of human-organ transplant surgery, initially in kidney transplantation, and then in more difficult surgery, such as liver, heart-lung, pancreas, and bone marrow transplants.
The problem with antibiotics is that bacteria reproduce at an astonishing speed and, like all organisms, mutate. As a result, new strains emerge that are resistant to the drugs. The more frequently antibiotics are used, the more quickly bacteria seem to outwit them. In the United States by the year 2005, physicians in practice wrote 130million prescriptions per year for antibiotics, as many as half of which were unnecessary. Beyond this, at least 30 percent of all hospitalized patients received one or more courses of therapy with antibiotics. One result of this widespread use is the continuous
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