Experiment Eleven

Lasting consequences for medicine, business, patent law and the drug industry: shows Merck's role in persuading the Patent Office to take the first radical step to the patenting of life.Misallocation of credit is endemic in science: the passions aroused are often acute; credit in science, after all, is the basis for recognition, jobs, promotions and awards.Nobel Prize controversy well-known: in recent scientific debate, the example of Waksman and Schatz, is cited with increasing frequency.Peter Pringle is a veteran British foreign correspondent and the author of several nonfiction books, including New York Times Notable, Food, Inc., and the best-selling Those Are Real Bullets, Aren't They? He has written for the New York Times and the Washington Post. He lives in New York City.The remarkable story of a wonder drug, a disputed Nobel Prize, and a patent that shaped modern medicine 'The story of Experiment Eleven is amazing, as is its brilliant reporting, narrative verve and cool command of scientific ideas' Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind 'A riveting and heartbreaking book' New Scientist In 1943, Albert Schatz, a young American Ph.D. student working in professor Selman Waksman's lab, was searching for an antibiotic to fight infections on the front lines and at home. On his eleventh experiment on a common bacterium found in farmyard soil, Schatz discovered streptomycin, the first effective cure for tuberculosis, at that time the leading killer among the world's infectious diseases. As director of Schatz's research, Waksman took credit for the discovery, belittled Schatz's work, and secretly enriched himself with royalties from the streptomycin patent filed by Merck, the pharmaceutical company. Acclaimed author and journalist Peter Pringle unravels the intrigue behind one of the most important discoveries in the history of medicine.A wonder drug, a disputed Nobel Prize, and a patent that shaped modern medicineThe story of Experiment Eleven is amazing, as is its brilliant reporting, narrative verve and cool command of scientific ideasA riveting and heartbreaking bookA useful popular addition to a necessary rebalancing of historyThe twists and turns and fabrications along the way make it as gripping as any thrillerAn elegant thriller ... he explains the minutiae of scientific experiments with as much clarity as he elucidates the human dramaA wonder drug, a disputed Nobel Prize, and a patent that shaped modern medicine