by Ron Powers
* The name, as is true of most synthetic compounds, is an amalgam of its components. Examining those or any synthetic’s components can be an eye-opening excursion into the unexpected, usually counterintuitive range of adaptations for natural substances.
Thymox, for example, is an oil extracted from the herb thyme that has been used for cleaning dental equipment and the hooves of cattle. Ethyl is extracted from sugarcane. Its derivatives are used as an extraction solvent in pharmaceuticals, as artificial flavoring in industrial foods, in treatment for arthritis (in Chinese medicine), in varnishes and lacquers, and of course as the intoxicating ingredient in liquor. Diethyl is a distillation of ethanol and sulfuric acid and has been around since the sixteenth century. It is a component in starting fluid for diesel engines, is used in anesthetics, and is a recreational inhalant. Amine refers to an organic dye extracted from tropical plants. When modified and injected with its companion elements into the bloodstream, it (and dyes of other colors) adheres to the tissue under examination, making the tissue easy for scientists to identify. Amine’s fumes are said to stink to high heaven and to be fatally toxic when inhaled in its pure state. It has become an important ingredient in treating cancer, syphilis, and other diseases. In the 1950s it was a component in rocket fuel.
Bovet himself alluded to this, in an understated way, in his Nobel speech on December 11, 1957: “The origin of many drugs must be looked for in substances of a biological nature, and in particular in the alkaloids. The elucidation of their structure has been a starting-off point for chemists to synthesize similar compounds.” (See http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1957/bovet-lecture.pdf.)
* Later in life Lehmann, who in fact was an admirer of Freud, expressed his dismay that psychopharmacology led to what he called “cook book” psychiatry, in which the necessary intimate relationship between therapist and patient is lost.
* A more limited understanding of “intellectual property,” the international copyright protection of books and other artistic creations, was contained in the treaty created by the Berne (Switzerland) Convention in 1886.
* These dynamics were studied at an October 2015 roundtable discussion among researchers and developers sponsored by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. Ken Getz, director of sponsored research at the center, told the group that “drug development cycle times have not gotten faster, costs continue to increase, and drug development has become riskier than ever with only 11.8% of products that enter clinical testing receiving regulatory approval, about half the rate of the 1990s.” Adding that advantage would accrue to companies able to reduce “clinical time and cost” of this cycle time [which another Tufts study estimated at nearly nine years from the start of human testing to the marketplace], Getz offered a figure that by itself illuminates the true breadth of Big Pharma’s swollen financial stakes: that the total capitalized cost of bringing a new drug to market averages out to $2.6 billion. http://csdd.tufts.edu/news/complete_story/rd_pr_october_2015.
* The case, known as Diamond v. Chakrabarty, pitted Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, a microbiologist employed by General Electric, against Sidney A. Diamond, commissioner of Patents and Trademarks. Chakrabarty had developed a genetically engineered bacterium capable of disintegrating the elements of crude oil toward the goal of rapidly cleaning up oil spills by tankers in the ocean. He filed to patent the compound, but was rejected on the ground that living entities were not patentable under historic congressional understanding. The high court ruled in favor of Chakrabarty.
* In 2011, the FDA warned that Saphris users can suffer serious allergic reactions. Merck agreed to revise the drug’s label to include this information.
* Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
* By contrast, the largest Western force in history until the Imperial Russian army of six million men was the “Grande Armée” of Napoleon, organized in 1805. It reached its numerical apogee of 680,000 prior to the invasion of Russia in 1812. This thrust proved a disaster for the French general, as it would for Adolf Hitler’s invasion force in June 1941. Battle attrition and the brutal Russian winter vitiated both forces. Napoleon retreated with only 120,000 men.
* The colleague was Edwin E. Witte, the executive director of Roosevelt’s Committee on Economic Security. It was Witte, an economist and passionate advocate for social justice, who crafted the wording of the bill that became the Social Security Act of 1935.
* A barometer for public understanding of combat stress could be found in the thousands of letters to President Roosevelt inspired by the incidents. Most of the letters supported Patton. General Eisenhower, however, forced the general to apologize, then relieved him of duty for nearly a year.
* This is not to say that eugenics was obliterated. No panacea that promises so much in terms of man’s perfectibility, and that has proved workable even in limited degrees, could ever be uninvented. Eugenics theories continue to be refined and practiced today, in fair uses and foul. What is called “modern eugenics” seeks to identify and, if possible, repair diseased genes. Gene therapists now envision the eventual cure of cancer, as well as blindness and many childhood diseases. Genetically modified crops and foods are now commonplace on a planet that faces severe shortages in the decades ahead, but concerns about side effects cause many of these products to be banned, especially in European countries.
* The first known intrusions into living human brains were performed in 1892 by a Swiss physician and insane asylum supervisor named Gottlieb Burkhardt. Burkhardt removed portions of the cerebral cortex from six patients thought to be schizophrenic. Two of the six died, and no one tried it again until Moniz.
* “Optogenetics” defines two parallel methods for monitoring and influencing neurons in the brain: genetically encoded sensors and light pulses. Named the Best Method of the Year 2010 by the journal Nature for its use of fiber-optic cable to normalize certain brain circuits, optogenetics has been radically improved by a unification of the two methods. The team leader in achieving this new stage is Michael Hausser, a neuroscientist at the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research in London. Hausser has reported that now the system can record complex neuron signaling codes and “play” those codes back so that the brains of animals will recognize and respond to them. This represents an important step toward controlling human neurons and eliminating or changing the faulty ones.
* The acronym covers most of the words in “Imaging of Neuro Disease Using High-Field MR and Contrastophores.”
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