Experiment Eleven: Deceit and Betrayal in the Discovery of the Cure for Tuberculosis

(Paperback)

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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.

Reviews

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 *
A useful popular addition to a necessary rebalancing of history * Financial Times *
The twists and turns and fabrications along the way make it as gripping as any thriller * Guardian *
An elegant thriller ... he explains the minutiae of scientific experiments with as much clarity as he elucidates the human drama * Daily Express *

Author Bio

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.