Experiment Eleven: Dark Secrets Behind the Discovery of a Wonder Drug
In a basement laboratory at Rutgers University’s Department of Soil Microbiology, a 23-year-old graduate student made an important medical discovery in 1943. He then crusaded much of his life to get credit for that finding. Albert Schatz was a PhD student scouring soil samples in search of new antibiotics when he hit pay dirt with the discovery of a potent antibiotic derived from a species of fungal-like bacteria, actinomycetes. Streptomycin became an effective treatment for multiple infectious diseases, including tuberculosis. His boss and mentor, Selman Waksman, was a professor at Rutgers. Waksman grabbed all the glory—royalty money and notoriety—for the discovery. The ongoing rift between the two scientists culminated in a lawsuit and settlement in which Schatz was finally acknowledged as codiscoverer of the drug. In 1952, Waksman alone was awarded the Nobel Prize, and Schatz faded into academic oblivion. Pringle exposes the roles of personality, power, and the pharmaceutical industry in the process of medical research. Even in science, the truth can be tricky. --Tony Miksanek