{"id":1129,"date":"2012-02-08T11:12:47","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T23:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2012-02-08T11:12:47","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T23:12:47","slug":"chemistry-pathologists-discoveries-to-dye-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/chemistry-pathologists-discoveries-to-dye-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Chemistry – Pathologist’s discoveries to dye for"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/p>\n
\n
\n
By Associate Professor Allan Blackman\n<\/dt>\n
\nThis article was orignally published in the Otago Daily Times
\non Tuesday 7 February 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n

<!–<\/p>\n

Tel: +64  3  479 7931<\/dd>\n

–><!–<\/p>\n

Location: Science II, 5n4<\/dd>\n

–><!–<\/p>\n

blackman@chemistry.otago.ac.nz<\/a><\/dd>\n

–><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I was feeling a bit poorly a couple of weeks ago, so I crawled from my
\nsickbed and made one of my relatively infrequent trips to the Doctor, who
\nprescribed a course of antibiotics. While remaining bedridden and feeling very
\nsorry for myself, I had occasion to recall the interesting genesis of the first
\nsynthetic antibiotic. It\u2019s all to do with dyes, and a father\u2019s great love for
\nhis daughter.
\nUp until a couple of hundred years ago, brightly coloured clothes were almost exclusively the domain of the rich, as the dyes used had to be sourced from either plants or animals. The colouration of one of Julius Caesar\u2019s purple robes, for example, reputedly came from the extracts of 10,000 molluscs, while to dye anything crimson required lots and lots of cochineal insects from far-off Mexico.
\nHowever, all this changed thanks to William Perkin, who in 1856, at the
\nridiculously young age of 18, patented the first synthetic dye, the
\npurple-coloured mauveine. His discovery changed the chemical industry overnight,
\nand spurred an enormous amount of research into other synthetic dyes \u2013 indeed,
\nthe chemical giant BASF was founded in 1865 for this very purpose.
\nIn 1925, BASF, along with five other chemical companies, merged to form I.G.
\nFarben (\u2018Farben\u2019 is an abbreviation of the German word for \u2018dye industry\u2019) and
\nit was to here that the German pathologist Gerhard Domagk took a leave of
\nabsence from his Professorship at the University of M\u00fcnster in order to further
\nhis studies on bacterial infections. He was working on a virulent form of
\nstreptococcus, and wanted to be able to \u2018stain\u2019 the bacteria so they could be
\neasily visualised. For this, he used a class of simple, highly-coloured
\nmolecules called azo dyes, and found to his surprise that some of these showed
\npromising activity against the bacteria. Chemical modification of one particular
\nazo dye gave a molecule called Prontosil, and in 1932, Domagk showed that this
\nprotected mice against lethal doses of streptococci.
\nWhile this was a huge breakthrough, it was by no means certain that Prontosil
\nwould be as effective in humans. And here, fate intervened. In 1935, Domagk\u2019s 6
\nyear-old daughter, Hildegard, pricked herself with a needle and suffered a
\nstreptococcal infection \u2013 in those days, such infections were often fatal. She
\nwas rushed to the doctor, who recommended amputation of the arm to save her
\nlife. Domagk, aghast at the suggestion, gave her a dose of Prontosil \u2013 two days
\nlater the infection had subsided and, soon after, she was discharged from
\nhospital. This incident, along with other somewhat more controlled clinical
\ntrials, confirmed Prontosil as the world\u2019s first effective synthetic
\nantibiotic.
\nDomagk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1939.
\nHowever, a law passed by the Nazis forbade any German citizen from accepting the
\naward, and he did not make the journey to Stockholm until 1947. Sadly, while he
\nwas awarded the diploma and the medal, he didn\u2019t receive the monetary portion of
\nthe prize.
\nWhile Prontosil was soon overtaken by Penicillin as the antibiotic of choice,
\nDomagk\u2019s work laid the foundations for all modern synthetic antibiotics. For
\nthis, we should be very grateful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

http:\/\/neon.otago.ac.nz\/chemistry\/magazine\/128<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Associate Professor Allan Blackman This article was orignally published in the Otago Daily Times on Tuesday 7 February 2012. <!– Tel: +64  3  479 7931 –><!– Location: Science II, 5n4 –><!– blackman@chemistry.otago.ac.nz –> I was feeling a bit poorly a couple … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5731,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[482,473],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry-resources","category-for-teachers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5731"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/ouassa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}