Sure enough, a few months after the Nobel Prize was awarded in 1945, on February 22, 1946, selman A. Wachsman, a professor at Rutgers University in the United States, announced that a second antibiotic, streptomycin, had been discovered in his laboratory, which had special effects on mycobacterium tuberculosis, and a new era of human overcoming tuberculosis began. Unlike penicillin, the discovery of streptomycin is not accidental, but the result of careful design and systematic long-term research. Like penicillin, the discovery right of this discovery, which also won the Nobel Prize, is also controversial.
Wachsman is a soil microbiologist. He has been interested in actinomycetes in soil since he was a university student. 19 15 years, when he was an undergraduate at Rutgers university, he and his colleagues discovered Streptomyces, and later isolated streptomycin from Streptomyces. People have long noticed that mycobacterium tuberculosis will be quickly killed in soil. In 1932, Wachsman was entrusted by the American Association for the Prevention and Treatment of Tuberculosis to study this problem, and found that it was probably due to the action of some microorganisms in the soil. 1939, with the support of pharmaceutical giant Merck, Wachsman led his students to systematically study whether antibacterial substances can be separated from soil microorganisms, which he later named antibiotics.
Wachsman led up to 50 students, who screened more than 10000 strains. 1940, Wachsman and his colleague H. B. Woodruff isolated his first antibiotic actinomycin, but it was too toxic and of little value. At 1942, streptomycin, the second antibiotic, was isolated from Wachsman. Streptomycin has strong resistance to many kinds of bacteria, including mycobacterium tuberculosis, but it is also too toxic to human body. In the process of studying streptomycin, Wachsman and his colleagues developed a series of test methods, which are very important for finding streptomycin in the future.
Streptomycin was isolated by Albert Schatz, a student of WaHeasman. From 65438 to 0942, Sazi became a doctoral student in Heasman. Soon, Saazi was enlisted and worked in a military hospital. 1June, 943, sazi was discharged due to illness and returned to Wachsman laboratory to continue his doctoral studies. Saaz was assigned the task of discovering new strains of Streptomyces. After working around the clock in the basement laboratory for more than three months, Saqi isolated two strains of Streptomyces: one from soil and the other from chicken throat. These two strains are the same as Streptomyces discovered by Wachsman in 19 15, but the difference is that they can inhibit the growth of several bacteria such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. According to Saqi, he realized that a new antibiotic, streptomycin, was discovered in June 1943+1October19. A few weeks later, after confirming that streptomycin is not toxic, two doctors in Mayo Clinic began to try to use it to treat tuberculosis patients, and the effect was surprisingly good. From 65438 to 0944, the United States and Britain began large-scale clinical trials, which confirmed that streptomycin had a very good therapeutic effect on tuberculosis. It proved to be effective against many infectious diseases, such as plague, cholera and typhoid fever. At the same time, Heasman and his students continued to study different strains of Streptomyces, and found that different strains have different abilities to produce streptomycin. Only four strains can be used for large-scale production of streptomycin. 1946, Dr. sazi graduated and left Rutgers University. Before leaving Rutgers University, Saqi gave the patent right of streptomycin to Rutgers University free of charge at the request of Wa Heasman. Salz thinks that no one will benefit from the patent of streptomycin. But Wachsman has other ideas. As early as 1945, Wachsman had realized that streptomycin would become an important drug with huge patent income. However, according to the agreement he signed with Merck in 1939, Merck will own all the patents of streptomycin. Heasman is worried that Merck's strength is not enough to meet the production demand of streptomycin, and thinks that if other pharmaceutical companies can also produce streptomycin, the price of streptomycin will drop. So he asked Merck to cancel the agreement of 1939. Strangely, Merck generously agreed 1946 to transfer the patent of streptomycin to Rutgers University, only requiring the production license of streptomycin. Rutgers University gives Wachsman 20% of the patent revenue.
Three years later, Saqi learned that Heasman received personal income from the streptomycin patent, amounting to $350,000. He was greatly dissatisfied and sued Rutgers University and Wachsman for sharing patent revenue. 1950 65438+February, the case was settled out of court. Rutgers University issued a statement acknowledging that Saatchi was the co-discoverer of streptomycin. According to the settlement agreement, Sazi received 6.5438+0.2 million US dollars in foreign patent income and 3% patent income (about 6.5438+0.5 million US dollars per year), Wachsman received 654.38+0.0% patent income, and the other 7% patent income was shared by others who participated in the early research and development of streptomycin. Wachsman voluntarily donated half of his patent income to set up a foundation to support microbiology research.
In the popular words, this practice of Saaz has destroyed the hidden rules of the industry. Although he won the lawsuit, it is difficult to gain a foothold in academia. He applied for teaching positions in more than 50 universities, and none of them was willing to accept a "litigator", so he had to teach in a small private agricultural college. Although Salz is the co-discoverer of streptomycin in law, it is not recognized by academic circles. 195210/0 In October, the Karolina Medical College in Sweden announced that Wachsman would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of streptomycin. Through his agricultural college, Saaz asked the Nobel Committee to let Saaz share the honor, and asked many Nobel laureates and other scientists for help, but few people were willing to speak for him. In February 65438+February 65438+February, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Wachsman as scheduled. When Heasman introduced the discovery of streptomycin in his acceptance speech, he did not mention Sarkozy, but said "we". It was not until the end that he put Saazi on the thank-you list. Wachsman published his memoirs in 1958, without mentioning Saaz's name, but called it a "graduate student".
After that, Wa Heasman continued to study antibiotics, and found more than 20 kinds of antibiotics with his students all his life, among which streptomycin and neomycin were the most successful. Wa Heasman died in 1973 at the age of 85, leaving more than 500 papers and more than 20 books.
From then on, Sazi can no longer engage in research in first-class laboratories. He couldn't even find a job in the early 1960 s and had to leave the United States to teach at the university of Chile. /kloc-returned to the United States in 0/969 and taught at Temple University. 1980 retired and died in 2005 at the age of 84.
Salz's contribution to streptomycin is almost forgotten. It was not until he retired that he was gradually remembered. This is due to Milton Wainewright, a microbiologist at the University of Sheffield in England. In the 1980' s, Wayne Wright went to Rutgers University to consult the archives about the discovery process of streptomycin in order to write a book about antibiotics. He first learned about Saazi's contribution, so he made a survey and interviewed Saazi. Wayne Wright wrote several articles about it and told the story of Saaz in a book published by 1990. At this time, Heasman had already passed away, and some professors at Rutgers University didn't have to worry about embarrassing him. They also called for Saaz's rehabilitation. For this reason, Rutgers University awarded the Salz Medal on the 50th anniversary of the discovery of 1994 streptomycin. At the same time, it was accompanied by accusations against Wachsman. For example, a review published in the British journal Nature in February 2002, taking the discovery of streptomycin as an example, shows that the attribution of scientific research results is unfair, and Saqi is the real discoverer of streptomycin. In 2004, a writer who was saved by streptomycin and SARS jointly published The Discovery of Dr SARS. Wachsman was portrayed as a man who stole the scientific research achievements of Saaz and took away all the glory of the discovery right of streptomycin.
Did Wachsman steal Saaz's scientific research results? The best way to judge a person's scientific research achievements is to look at the published papers. During 1944, Wachsman Laboratory published a paper on the discovery of streptomycin. The first author of the paper is Saqi, the second author is E Buji, and the last author is Wachsman. Judging from the authors rank order of this paper, it is completely in line with the biological practice: Saaz is the main finisher of the experiment, so it ranks first, while Wachsman is the director of the experiment, so it ranks last. It can be seen that Heasman didn't bury Saazi's contribution in the paper. Their subsequent disputes and bad relations were all caused by patent sharing, which had nothing to do with academic contribution sharing.
So, is it appropriate to award the Nobel Prize only to Wachsman? Who was the main discoverer of streptomycin, Wachsman or Salz? Streptomycin was not discovered by Salz alone in a few months, but the result of systematic research for many years in Wa Heasman Laboratory, mainly the research plan designed by Wa Heasman, and Salz's work was only a part of the plan. According to this research plan and experimental steps, the discovery of streptomycin is only a matter of time. Salz is just a laborer who carries out Wachsman's research plan. Another graduate student can also find streptomycin. In fact, other students later discovered streptomycin from other strains. Heasman's greatest contribution is to develop a systematic method for finding antibiotics, which has also been applied in other laboratories, so he is regarded as the father of antibiotics by some people.
Therefore, the discovery right of streptomycin should mainly belong to the maker and leader (i.e. tutor) of the experimental project, while the specific executor (i.e. student) is secondary. This is actually the practice of awarding the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, not the discovery of streptomycin. Other biological achievements that won the Nobel Prize are usually awarded only to the leaders of experiments, and students who do experiments rarely share them. Sarkozy obviously knows this, so he has always stressed that he persuaded Wa Heasman to study anti-tuberculosis antibiotics, trying to regard himself as the maker of the experimental project. But this is not in line with historical facts, because before Saaz joined Wachsman's laboratory, Wachsman's laboratory was already testing the effect of antibiotics on mycobacterium tuberculosis.
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