In­ter­na­tional Women's Day and the Dis­cov­ery of Nys­tatin

by Elio

Sixty years ago, the de­lib­er­ate test­ing and analy­sis of soil sam­ples net­ted two women – Eliz­a­beth Hazen and Rachel Brown – the dis­cov­ery of nys­tatin, the first use­ful an­ti­fun­gal an­tibi­otic. Its pro­ducer, found re­sid­ing in soil col­lected near a cow pas­ture, was a newly-iden­ti­fied mem­ber of the Strep­to­mycetes, named Strep­to­myces nour­sei in honor of the owner of the pas­ture, a Mr. Nourse.

new logo of the Twisted Mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy blog (link bro­ken).

Their dis­cov­ery is ap­pro­pri­ately cel­e­brated in a blog that fo­cuses on the actin­o­mycetes and that we are very fond of: Twisted Bac­te­ria. In the author's words: "This post mod­estly cel­e­brates March 8th, In­ter­na­tional Women's Day. The dis­cov­ery of nys­tatin seems a good ex­am­ple of an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion of women sci­en­tists to mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy, nat­ural prod­uct chem­istry, and med­i­cine."

Women were well rep­re­sented among the early dis­coverers of an­tibi­otics, with cyclo­heximide and fos­fo­mycin (and prob­a­bly oth­ers) also to their credit. You can find ad­di­tional links on the sub­ject of women in micro­biology in that cel­e­bra­tory post. We join the au­thor, César Sánchez, in this salute.