Experiment Eleven

Experiment Eleven: Dark Secrets Behind the Discovery of a Wonder Drug by Peter Pringle, Walker Books, 2012. 

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterial species of the genus Mycobacterium. Within the bacterial genus Mycobacterium there are several species, one of which is tuberculosis. Within the species tuberculosis there are several strains, only some of which cause the disease tuberculosis. It is safer to perform initial tests of a new antibiotic on non-pathogenic strains, before proceeding cautiously with testing on the dangerous strains. 

Soil Microbiology

Soil microbiology is the study of the fertility of the soil and the production by microbes of substances that help plants grow. Soil microbes also cause plant diseases. Soil microbiologists also study soil acidity, and the effect of soil acidity on the microbes. 

Selman Waksman

Selman Waksman, who was born in the Ukraine, was able to read scientific literature in both Russian and German. In the 1920’s Waksman had a student named Jacob Joffe, who wrote a thesis in 1922 on a soil bacterium that made sulfuric acid, which helped soil fertility. Joffe felt that Waksman had unfairly put Waksman’s name ahead of Joffe’s name on the publication of this work. Starting in 1939, Waksman consulted for Merck & Co,. of Rahway, New Jersey on microbial fermentation. Waksman also worked for Cutter Laboratories in California. 

Rutgers University

Selman Waksman’s laboratory in the Department of Soil Microbiology at Rutgers University in New Jersey tried to find an antibiotic from soil microbes that would be useful in killing bacteria. One of Waksman’s students from the late 1920s, René Dubos, had moved on to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, where he discovered an antibiotic called gramicidin in the 1930s. H. Boyd Woodruff joined Waksman’s lab in 1939. Woodruff discovered actinomycin, which killed E. Coli. But it was too toxic for human use.  

Albert Schatz

Waksman gave his graduate student Albert Schatz the task of finding an antibiotic that would kill the Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain that causes tuberculosis. Schatz worked with  of the Actinomyces griseus bacteria, to see whether they secreted an antibiotic that would kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The Actinomyces bacteria Schatz worked with came from several sources: soil samples, stable manure, and chicken mouth swabs. The name of the bacterium was changed in 1948 to Streptomyces griseus. 

Waksman's Minimal Contribution to the Discovery of Streptomycin

Selman Waksman provided minimal intellectual supervision of the work of Albert Schatz. Selman Waksman hardly ever even visited the basement laboratory where the work was done. Albert Schatz  worked independently, using his own ideas. Waksman told others that streptomycin had been isolated using his six-step procedure, but Albert Schatz had used only part of Waksman’s six-step procedure, replacing some of Waksman’s steps with steps of his own. So Albert Sachs was not just another pair of hands in the lab. 

Doris Jones

Doris Jones,  a scientist working in Waksman’s laboratory, obtained Actinomyces secretions from chicken mouth swabs, and tested the Streptomycin isolated from the Actinomyces secretions against typhoid bacteria in poultry.

Elizabeth Bugie

Elizabeth Bugie, a scientist working in Waksman’s laboratory, developed a method to produce greater quantity of Actinomyces bacteria secretions. 

Laboratory Testing

Schatz tested in vitro the Actinomyces secretions against E. coli. Then he tested the secretions against non-virulent strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Finally, Schatz tested against virulent strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This latter was dangerous work. 

Merck

Merck chemists scaled up production of antibiotic streptomycin to create enough for the Mayo Clinic guinea pig tests.  

Mayo Clinic

In 1944, William H. Feldman and Corwin H. Hinshaw of the Mayo Clinic tested streptomycin against virulent tuberculosis bacteria in guinea pigs. They used initially used streptomycin obtained from Waksman’s laboratory, then later they used streptomycin obtained from Merck. It killed TB germs in guinea pigs and was not toxic to the guinea pigs. Then they tested it in humans. Again, it worked. 

Nobel Prize

Selman Waksman tried to belittle the contributions of Albert Schatz to the discovery of Streptomycin. In 1952, Waksman, but not Schatz, received the Nobel Prize for this discovery. Waksman also cut Schatz almost completely out of the patent royalties for streptomycin. So Schatz had to sue Waksman to get his fair share of the patent royalties. He won.