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E+T Magazine

Cloning technologies are being used to uncover the hidden medicines hiding in soil bacteria.

You do not need to go too far back in recent history to find yourself in the golden age of medicine – a time when life-saving drugs were being discovered and developed at an unprecedented rate. Having been kick-started by the discovery of penicillin in the late 1920s, scientists spent the majority of the 20th century harvesting antibiotics, anticancer drugs and immunosuppressants from microbes living in the soil beneath our feet.

These so-called natural products (NPs) were not just a source of new treatments; they formed the backbone of modern medicine. More than 500 life-saving treatments discovered during this golden age are still improving lives today – from penicillin, which remains a cornerstone in antibiotic therapy, to drugs such as streptomycin, tetracycline and erythromycin. All of these were isolated from soil bacteria and are used to treat a wide range of infections from acne to tuberculosis...

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Parents

  • Don"t forget that the "golden age of medicine" 1950-1960, also gave the world "Thalidomide" , which gave us major birth defects. 

    This was because it had two enantiomers (one good and one bad) which could be converted within the human body.

    This chemical was developed from glutamic acid, from natural substances such as wheat or seaweed.

    Peter Brooks

    Palm Bay FL. 

Comment

  • Don"t forget that the "golden age of medicine" 1950-1960, also gave the world "Thalidomide" , which gave us major birth defects. 

    This was because it had two enantiomers (one good and one bad) which could be converted within the human body.

    This chemical was developed from glutamic acid, from natural substances such as wheat or seaweed.

    Peter Brooks

    Palm Bay FL. 

Children
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