
Lloyd Conover, Inventor of Groundbreaking Antibiotic Tetracycline, Dies at 93 - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/12/business/lloyd-conover-dead-inventor-of-groundbreaking-antibiotic.html
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danso
I know the legend of penicillin makes it sound as if revolutionary drugs were
discovered by miracle accident, but I'm guessing the less famous drugs, such
as tetracyclene, involved a more "routine", non-sexy methodical-hypothesis-
testing process, as described in the OP:

> _Dr. Conover, however, became intrigued with two naturally occurring
> antibiotics that, except for two atoms, were chemically identical. To Dr.
> Conover, the atoms seemed out of place. Each antibiotic had a chlorine or
> oxygen atom where he expected to find a hydrogen atom. Would swapping in
> hydrogen improve the potency of the drugs?_

> _Using a routine chemical procedure, he stripped chlorine from one
> antibiotic and inserted hydrogen, creating a more stable molecule. He worked
> with a single assistant. “I didn’t want an audience if we failed,” he told
> The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 1992._

> _The result was tetracycline, a powerful antibiotic with fewer side effects
> than the drug from which it was derived — proof, Dr. Conover wrote, that “a
> superior drug could be made by chemical modification.”_

In computer science and computer engineering, students typically learn about,
and then how to implement such fundamental breakthroughs as Hamming codes [0]
and implementing ALU's in VHDL [1].

What's the equivalent in chemistry/biology/pharma? That is, how do you get
into the field/expertise/mindset in which you're creating and testing out drug
compositions in a methodical way that Dr. Conover did when he was able to
discover and confirm tetracycline in a matter of months.

I realize this already feels like a silly question. Discovering new drugs is
more complicated today. And a single science, such as chemistry, isn't enough
to create an antibiotic, because you also have to be able to test the result.
And perhaps there's a significant amount of chemical engineering process
involved to efficiently create the target antibiotic.

[0] [http://nifty.stanford.edu/2011/hansen-hamming-
codes/](http://nifty.stanford.edu/2011/hansen-hamming-codes/)

[1]
[http://www.utdallas.edu/~poras/courses/ee3320/xilinx/upenn/l...](http://www.utdallas.edu/~poras/courses/ee3320/xilinx/upenn/lab5-ALUDesign.htm)

~~~
JunkDNA
The field of study that most directly relates to what you describe is
Medicinal Chemistry
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicinal_chemistry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicinal_chemistry))

It's a fascinating discipline. Typically for any given drug, large numbers of
candidates are made. Those candidates are trivially different and go through a
battery of tests for toxicity and efficacy. While there's a lot of science to
it, the amount we know about biology is too primitive for it to be a pure
engineering discipline. There's a certain amount of art to it because it's not
enough to make the compound. You need to consider that if it works, some day a
person is going to have to make it at scale, so it needs to be easy to make
too. Finally, biology is surprising and messy so sometimes a gut instinct
tells you to go a certain way.

I once was in a talk where one of the medicinal chemists who developed
Amoxicillin described his excitement when they discovered the drug they had
made had no taste whatsoever. The standard of care oral antibiotic that
preceded it for brief period was horribly bitter (I forget the name). Kids
hated taking the liquid form as a result. The team realized that with no
innate flavor, the liquid form of Amoxicillin could be flavored with something
more subtle than the typical grape or cherry flavors that they were accustomed
to using to mask the flavor of drugs. He chose bubblegum.

~~~
HarryHirsch
There's a very nice introductory medchem course on edX with Prof Erland
Stevens at Davidson College. It has been through a few iterations already, and
another round just started this Monday: [https://www.edx.org/course/medicinal-
chemistry-molecular-bas...](https://www.edx.org/course/medicinal-chemistry-
molecular-basis-drug-davidsonx-d001x-2)

Some members of the audience may find it interesting as this or that facet of
the subject is discussed with regularity on this forum - the FDA, antibiotics,
intellectual property &c pp.

Discussion of the regulatory and business environment is included, it's after
all part of the environment that med. chemists find themselves in.

------
proee
My dermatologist prescribed handfuls of tetracycline to battle my teenage
acne. I took around 8 pills of the stuff daily for years. My GI tracks been
messed up for years and there was very little improvement in my acne.

~~~
xutopia
Why would your doctor do that?

~~~
HarryHirsch
Doxycyclin is a first-line treatment for acne, it's a chronic bacterial
infection, after all. But there's simply no good reason to continue first-line
treatment that isn't working, hippocratic oafs are everywhere, one would
guess.

