3 ms·
In the 1960s a Canadian research expedition collected soil samples from Easter Island which led to the discovery of rapamycin (aka sirolimus). https://en.wikip
by logifail 2y ago
In the 1960s a Canadian research expedition collected soil samples from Easter Island which led to the discovery of rapamycin (aka sirolimus).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirolimus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirolimus
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9634974/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9634974/
(Full disclosure - spent my PhD working with macrolides including this one. It's an amazing origin story for a compound...)
- hentrep 2y agoThe discovery of rapamycin is such a fascinating story. Radiolab covered this a few years back - I encourage everyone to give it a listen: https://radiolab.org/podcast/dirty-drug-and-ice-cream-tub https://radiolab.org/podcast/dirty-drug-and-ice-cream-tub
- adammarples 2y agoI would like to be able to listen to this but its almost like it's for 4 year olds. The scientists looked in the soil samples "Waaaaa why would you look in soil?? EWW!" Anyway the compound stopped the fungus growing "So it's sort of like it stopped time??" Yes and it had a suppresive effect on the immune system "So it's sort of like Elsa from Frozen it just freezes things??" Yes, these are direct quotes from the episode, all within the first few minutes.