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The smallpox vaccine

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  The Smallpox vaccine   We all know Edward Jenner as the Father of Vaccination as he is credited with discovering the first vaccination which was against the deadly small pox ( the speckled monster , as it was called in those days) .   However, the story of vaccines should actually start with a bold lady who went against the prevailing views and dared to inoculate her children to protect them from this nasty smallpox infection. The name of this brave woman was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . Wife of a British ambassador to Turkey, Mary was fiercely independent with an open mind and great a observation. During her interactions with the beautiful Turkish women she observed that they didn’t bear any small pox marks. Having herself being badly affected with the smallpox when in England( her skin was scarred, her eyelashes were lost and the skin around her eyes was left red and irritable for the rest of her life), she was surprised to know that the people in Turkey suffered a very mild
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The First ACE inhibitor: Captopril

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Captopril The first ACE inhibitor! Captopril (trade name Capoten), discovered in 1975 was Squibb’s first billion dollar drug and among the first drugs marketed as anti-hypertensive agents. Discovery of captopril makes an interesting case of how a keen observation combined with systematic, rational drug design approach can lead us to some path breaking discoveries. A snake bite results in an instant drop of its prey’s blood pressure making its escape impossible! This fact was the initial lead for the discovery of captopril. Let’s read on an interesting account of sequence of events and the thought process that went behind the success of captopril. The story begins in late 1960s when Sérgio Henrique Ferreira  of Brazil, who had been studying the venom of a Brazilian pit viper, the jararaca ( Bothrops jararaca ) , brings a sample of the viper's venom to John R. Vane,   the Professor of Experimental Pharmacology in the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences at the Royal College
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Librium: Drug Stories Part IV

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                                                            Discovery of Chlordiazepoxide (Librium) Chlordiazepoxide, or more commonly, Librium , is a drug used to control anxiety. It belongs to the class of chemicals called benzodiazepines. It was the first drug of this class reported to have tranquilising effect on brain. Its discovery opened up the road to the synthesis of many of its better and safer benzodiazepine derivatives.   Serendipity, or chance discovery, has contributed in a big way to the discovery of new drugs. Discovery of chlordiazepoxide makes an interesting case of serendipity.   Leo Sternbach , a Polish American scientist working with Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical firm was assigned the job of coming up with agents acting on nervous system. In 1950s, barbiturates had gained popularity as antianxiety agents but suffered with many side effects, addiction being the most serious.  Sternbach had worked with benzoheptoxdiazines while working on his project for discov
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Paracetamol: Drug Stories Part-III

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  Discovery of Acetaminophen Acetamiophen is an analgesic and antipyretic agent with no anti-inflammatory action. Discovery of acetaminophen, more commonly known as paracetamol makes an interesting story. Discovery of paracetamol can be said to be a culmination of Serendipity, scientific acumen and diligence.                                                                                  Photo by  James Yarema  on  Unsplash   Industrial revolution brought a huge surge in commercial synthesis of many compounds, especially the dyes. There being a limited knowledge about biology, and a booming chemical industry led to testing of numerous compounds for various activities. The choice of activity to be studied was based more on expectations rather than rationale. Under these circumstances, Arnold Cahn and Paul Hepp, sometime around 1886 at the University of Strasbourg had been involved in testing a variety of chemicals (mostly dyes and products from coal tar processing) against i
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Aspirin: Drug Stories Part-II

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  Aspirin The chemical name of aspirin is acetyl salicylic acid. Introduced into therapeutics in 1897, it has successfully completed 125 years and still holds the scientists and doctors in awe over it's possible uses! We will get to these uses later. First, about the discovery…   There are accounts of usage of bark of willow tree ( Salix sp.) by many old civilisations like Assyrians, Sumerians, Egyptians and Chinese for treatment of conditions like muscular and joint pain, rheumatism and fever.   However, the first modern report about systematic experimentation on the therapeutic action of willow bark in treatment of ‘ague’ (a fever marked by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals) conducted by Edward stone, a vicar in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire was published by the Royal Society in 1763.   Reverend Edw ard had accidentally tasted willow bark and its bitterness   reminded him of chinchona bark (contains quinine) that was then being used
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Statins: Drug Stories-Part I

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                                                             STATINS Cholesterol was first isolated in 1784 from gallstones by French physician-chemist François Poulletier. French chemist Michel E. Chevreul named it cholesterine (solid bile in Greek: chole for bile and stereos for solid). The correct molecular formula for cholesterol was established in 1888 Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer. It took more than two decades to decipher the complex structure of cholesterol. The credit for the same goes to Heinrich O. Wieland and Adolf Windaus who successfully established the structure through their brilliant work in early 1900s. Wieland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1927 and Windaus in 1928. Cholesterol became a molecule of interest in the etiology of atherosclerosis when in 1910 Windaus reported that atherosclerotic plaques from aortas of human subjects contained over 20-fold higher concentrations of cholesterol than did normal aortas! Through following a number of patie
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