To discover new drugs, pharmaceutical researchers go around the world collecting biological samples in their quest to find plants, fungi or bacteria that contain substances that have properties that make them candidates for drug development but rarely as far as Rapa Nui.
And oftentimes (as in this case), serendipity not a directed search strategy plays an essential role.
It starts with another modern Easter Island expedition under the leadership of Georges Nógrády, a bacteriologist from the University of Montreal with a ship from the Canadian Navy and a crew of 40 scientists and doctors that took off from Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1964. Georges Nógrády and his team were looking for something entirely different when they collected soil samples from all across the island looking for tetanus spores (which they did find very few of).
The samples were given to the research laboratories of Ayerst in Montreal (which has since through a set of mergers become part of Pfizer, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world). Pharmaceutical companies love biological samples as they always look for new molecules that can be isolated and have medicinal properties that make them candidates for developing them into commercial drugs and Nógrády brought back 5,000 carefully frozen samples.
In 1972, Suren Seghal, a researcher with an almost stubborn determination to stick with his discoveries, was able to grow bacteria from the Easter Island soil samples and isolate a novel bacterial product originally called Rapamycin – Rapa because it is the indigenous name of the island and mycin because it showed properties against fungi.
He was happy because the novel molecule Rapamycin had anti-fungal properties but he was surprised that it also suppressed the growth of cancer (Seghal sent a sample to the National Cancer Institute but they were not interested at that time) and immune cells.
In 1983, Ayerst closed down the facility in Montreal, laying off 95% of the staff and moving with a small group that included Seghal to Princeton. Knowing that he would not have access to the large fermentors to grow the bacteria in Princeton, Seghal synthesized a large batch of Rapamycin in Montreal to take with him to Princeton and thus saved it for the world and the research to come.
With the growing interest in transplant medicine (and new management at his company), Seghal helped to develop Rapamycin for this purpose and it was approved in 1999 by the FDA as an immunosuppressant for organ transplantation.
Rapamycin (and its analogues) have since used to treat various cancers, rare lung diseases (LAM), venous malformations and even used to coat stents for heart surgery to prevent re-clogging.
Last but not least, Rapamycin prolongs lifespan in yeast, worms, flies and mice and one of its analogues prevents age-dependent decline in the immune system of humans (very topical: they measured the positive effect by an improved reaction to a flu shot).
How can a single drug have such wonderful but diverse effects? In the next part of this series, we will dive deep into the molecular biology of how cell growth and division is regulated and what role Rapamycin plays in it.
Moderner Fünfkampf - mehr als ein Sport 