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INFECTIOUS DISEASES
INFECTIOUS DISEASES
ANTIBIOTICS
ANTIBIOTICS
The magic bullets of medicine
In a 1945 interview with The New York Times, Alexander
Fleming, who won a Nobel Prize that year for his
In 1906 German physician and scientist, Dr Paul Ehrlich predicted that chemists would ‘soon be
able to produce substances that would seek out specific disease-causing agents’. He called these
substances ‘magic bullets’. Twelve years later, Sir Alexander Fleming, fondly known as the ‘sloppy’
lab technician ‘accidentally’ discovered penicillin and changed the course of modern medicine.
discovery of pencillin, warned that misuse of the drug
could result in selection for resistant bacteria. True to
this prediction, resistance began to emerge within 10
1941-1943
years of the wide scale introduction of penicillin
Andrew Moyer, Robert Coghill and Kenneth
Raper develop methods for industrialised
penicillin production and isolated higheryielding strains of the Penicillium fungus
Charles Moran and
colleagues save
Winston Churchill
from pneumonia
with the use of
sulphonamide
René Dubos isolates
tyrothricin, the first
antibiotic in history
to show strong
antimicrobial activity
experimentally in
a mouse
Fleming
discovers
penicillin
(ß-lactams)
Howard Florey
and William Dunn
show the in vivo
bactericidal action
of penicillin
Florey and Dunn
treat a policeman,
Albert Alexander,
with a severe face
infection. At first his
condition improves,
but supplies run out
and he dies
1939
1941
1928
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•
Edmund Kornfield
receives a soil
sample from a
missionary friend
based in Borneo,
which leads to the
discovery of the
first glycopeptide
Dorothy Hodgkin
works out the
structure of penicillin
using X-rays.
Knowledge of the
structure finally
opens new avenues
for creating and
developing semisynthetic derivatives
of penicillin
Albert Schatz and
Discovery of
Selman Waksman
fidaxomicin
discover a second
(targeting Clostridium
clinically important
Giuseppe Brotzu
difficile), the first
antibiotic, streptomycin finds a fungus from
Scientists
in a new class of
(aminoglycosides),
seawater near a
from Japan
narrow spectrum
effective against
sewage outlet in
isolates the
macrocyclic
e.g. Mycobacterium
Sardinia and isolates
first polymyxin
antibiotic drugs
tuberculosis
the first cephalosporin
1943
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•
1945
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1948
•
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•
1932
1940
1942
1944
1947
1949
Florey and Dunn
successfully treat
bacterial infection
in mice
John Fulton uses 5.5g
of crude penicillin to
save the life of Anne
Miller who developed
septicaemia after
a miscarriage
Benjamin Duggar
reveals the
discovery of the
first tetracycline
Chloramphenicol
is discovered as
a natural product
secreted by
the bacterium
Streptomyces
venezuelae found in
soil and compost
Abelardo Aguilar
from the Philippines
isolates erythromycin
producing bacteria
Resistance to
antibiotics first
observed (sulfa drugs)
1941-1944
Jasper Kane and colleagues develop the
practical, deep-tank fermentation method
for production of large quantities of
pharmaceutical-grade penicillin
30 August 2016 The Specialist Forum Vol. 16 No. 7
Ehrlich and
colleagues discover
the first amphenicol
Scientists at the
Hamao Umezawa
develop azomycin,
which later leads the
the development
of metronidazole
Lab scientists at
UpJohn Company
announce
the discovery
of novobiocin
Scientists at the
the Rhône-Poulenc
Company in
France announce
the development
of metronidazole
1953
1956
1959
1950
Gerhard Domagk
tests sulfonamidochrysoidine, first
synthesised by
chemists Josef Klarer
and Fritz Mietzsch
Georgyi Gause
and his wife, Maria
Brazhnikova, discover
Gramicidin S. Within
a year, all Russian
hospitals start to use it
MH McCormick
and colleagues
discover vancomycin
•
1952
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1955
Hans
Oxazolidinone, a
Margreiter
class of compounds
and Ernst
containing
Brandl develop
2-oxazolidone
the first
in the structure,
acid-stable
is discovered
penicillin
Oral nitrofuran is
for oral
used for the first
administration,
time to treat urinary
penicillin V
tract infections
Samuel
Kushner and
colleagues
announce the
discovery of
pyrazinamide
•
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Scientists discover
Quinolones, a family
a new class of
of synthetic broadβ-lactam antibiotics,
spectrum antibiotic
carbapenems, which
drugs, are ‘accidently’
proved able to kill
discovered by GY
bacteria resistant to
Lesher et al
other β-lactams
1962
•
1957
1961
John Sheehan of
the Massachusetts
Institute of
Technology
completes the first
chemical synthesis
of penicillin
Scientists at
UpJohn announce
the discovery
of Spectinomycin
Piero Sensi and
Maria Timbal isolate
rifamycins from a
fermentation culture
of Streptomyces
mediterranei
Scientists at the
Umezawa Group
in Japan isolate
kanamycin. It was a
breakthrough drug
for killing penicillin
and streptomycin
resistant bacteria
•
Lipopetides
are discovered.
A lipopeptide is a
molecule consisting
of a lipid connected
to a peptide. Bacteria
express these
molecules. Certain
lipopeptides are
used as antibiotics
1976
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1963
1986
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1985
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1997
Barry Marshall
Diarylquinolines,
Streptogramin,
swallows a petri dish
a chemical
effective in the
of Helicobacter pylori
class of drugs
treatment of
used to treat
vancomycin-resistant to prove they caused
stomach diseases
tuberculosis,
Staphylococcus
The Lederle
aureus, is discovered such as peptic ulcers. are discovered
Company announces
He cures himself
the discovery of
with antibiotics
etambutol, and
antituberculosis drug
SOURCES
History of the Development of Antibiotics. World of
Microbiology and Immunology, 2003. Front Microbiol, 2010.
Aminov RI. A Brief History of the Antibiotic Era: Lessons
Learned and Challenges for the Future, 2010.
Lewis K. Timeline of the discovery and introduction of
antibiotics. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 2013.
White RJ. The early history of antibiotic discovery: Empiricism
ruled. Antibiotic Discovery and Development, 2011.
Sponsored article. SF
The Specialist Forum Vol. 16 No. 7 August 2016 31