Magic Bullets

1
Magic Bullets

• Prevention is better than Cure
• Unless you have got the Disease!

2

• Prevention
• Cause
• Cure

3
Behrings Biological Bullets

• Part of Kochs research team
• He recognised that animals try to produce
  anti-bodies to fight any invading bacteria
• He successfully identified the anti-bodies that
  fought Diphtheria
• Removed the clotting agents
• Injected it into infected people
• The anti-bodies killed the germs but nothing else
• Magic Bullet

4
Salvarsan 606

• Paul Ehrlich
• Part of Kochs staining team
• Had worked with Behring
• He wanted to create a chemical version of the
  Behrings anti-bodies
• Chemicals which killed the germs but nothing else
• Using Dyes to kill the Syphilis Bacteria
• These were not harmful enough to the germs
• He switched to Arsenic compounds
• After 605 attempts at varying the dosage they
  still had no luck
• Compound 606 worked
• They nearly missed it! Only when Hata retested it

5
Prontosil

• Gerhardt Domagk
• Experimented with Dyes
• to fight Blood Poisoning
• Some reasonable success using mice
• His daughter accidentally chased her Guinea Pig
  into his research room and infected herself with
  some contaminated blood
• Domagk was forced to try out his discovery
• Luckily it worked
• The second chemical bullet had been discovered

6
Industrialising Production of the Magic Bullets

• How did Prontosil work
• What was the active ingredient of Prontosil
• Electron Microscope invented 1931
• Sulphanomide
• Extracted from Coal Tar
• Sulphanomides adapted by Drug Companies
• Scarlet fever, meningitis, Gonorrhoea, Pneumonia
• See graph page 155 for effectiveness of
  sulphanomides

7
Penicillin The Guided Missile

• Most infections caused by the powerful germs
• Staphylococci
• Streptococci
• No drugs effectively killed these germs
• Infections would spread across the whole body
• Death likely

8
Alexander Flemings Accidental Discovery

• In 1928, Fleming was researching the
  Staphylococci germ
• He had lots of Culture plates lying around (in
  the sink)
• He went on holiday and left the window ajar
• On his return and before he cleaned up, he
  noticed that the Staphylococci on one of the
  plates had been killed off
• He immediately rushed to see what was responsible
  
• A small fungus called Penicillium had blown
  through the window
• He wrote a paper explaining what had happened but
  he could not figure out a way of growing the
  fungus

9
Mass Producing Penicillin

• Howard Florey and Ernst Chain
• Read Flemings paper with interest
• World War II broke out in 1939
• Government grants to discover a way of growing
  Penicillium
• The Milk Bottle Process
• They needed as much surface area as possible to
  grow the mould
• Slowly gathered a few grams of penicillin

10
Does it work?

• Testing process of Penicillin
• On mice
• 8 mice were injected with Staphylococci
• 4 were given Penicillin, 4 were not
• Which 4 died?
• On a policeman in 1941
• With a spreading infection
• Immediately he improved but there was not enough
  Penicillin to give him
• Recycled through his urine
• Unfortunately, he died as the dosage required was
  more than they had.
• Obviously, it was a very powerful drug, but it
  was so hard to produce

11
The USA Helps Out

• Research was difficult in war torn Britain
• Florey was sent to the USA to continue his
  research
• Spores were spread on his jacket
• December 1941
• US Government invests 80 Million
• 4 Multi-National Drug companies were told that
  the development of Penicillin was their top
  priority
• Huge factories were set up to mass produce the
  fungus
• 1943
• Field Trials in North Africa
• 1944
• Enough to supply all the casualties on D-Day
• The Germans relied on the inferior Sulphanomides
  for the duration of the war