Tetracycline - History

History

The tetracyclines, a large family of antibiotics, were discovered as natural products by Benjamin Minge Duggar in 1945 and first described in 1948. Under Yellapragada Subbarao, Benjamin Duggar made his discovery of the first tetracycline antibiotic, chlortetracycline (Aureomycin), at Lederle Laboratories in 1945.

In 1950, Harvard University professor Robert Burns Woodward determined the chemical structure of the related substance, oxytetracycline (Terramycin); the patent protection for its fermentation and production was also first issued in 1950. A research team of seven scientists (K.J. Brunings, Francis A. Hochstein, C.R. Stephens, Lloyd Hillyard Conover, Abraham Bavley, Richard Pasternack, and Peter P. Regna) at Pfizer, in collaboration with Woodward, participated in the two-year research leading to the discovery.

Pfizer was of the view that it deserved the right to a patent on tetracycline and filed its Conover application in October 1952. Cyanamid filed its Boothe-Morton application for similar rights in March 1953, while Heyden Chemicals filed its Minieri application in September 1953, named after scientist P. Paul Minieri, to obtain a patent on tetracycline and its fermentation process. This resulted in tetracycline litigation in which the winner would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt of priority invention and tetracycline’s natural state.

Nubian mummies studied in the 1990s were found to contain significant levels of tetracycline; the beer brewed at the time could have been the source. Tetracycline sparked the development of many chemically altered antibiotics, so has proved to be one of the most important discoveries made in the field of antibiotics. It is used to treat many Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Like some other antibiotics, it is also used in the treatment of acne.