In life, the wrong people often get the accolades, whilst those that really catalysed success, are somehow pushed to the background. Maybe their personalities such, they are sidelined.. Type-A’s…difficult to confront! My suspicion is that H.Boyd Woodruff, microbiologist, was one that did not really receive his full recognition! His work was up to Nobel Prize standard, and indeed enabled others. His groundbreaking research allowed fellow scientists to produce a litany of lifesaving antibiotics originating from the microbes of ordinary dirt. He died on Jan 19th. at the age of 99. Antibiotics Genius, Lessons!
In early 1940s his proof of concept for screening of microorganisms..bacteria..in the soil, allowed ultimate rapid war development of streptomycin. This, a miracle cure for tuberculosis, typhoid, plague, and other diseases that were unresponsive to penicillin. This ‘Eureka’ moment, described by Dr. Eveleigh, Professor Emeritus, biochemistry and microbiology, Rutgers University, allowed avalanche of resulting antibiotics. My rhetorical current, and surely valid current question…to beat the superbug, we NOW need new antibiotics, more than ever! How to recreate that wartime research attitude?
How to stimulate antibiotic investment, and recreate that drive and enthusiasm now badly needed to conquer superbugs? Antibiotics Genius, Lessons!
But Woodruff, LONGEVITY, how & why? Breakthrough work at Merck, allowed lifetime of travel vast array of countries, at fascinating times. in Europe just post war, saw devastation…lived Cambridge 50’s, heating one room, because of UK coal rationing..worked in Japan, and around the word…made wonderful friends. Son of farmer, upbringing healthy and active, nutrition emphasis vegetables…the continual farming physical movement of his youth, never lost!
So absorbed with work, retirement escaped him! It was not until his 80’s that he wondered what to do! This dilemma hits much earlier to many seniors, with forced retirement…this, perhaps, societies’ springboard to their early death. Woodruff, no apparent stress, nor with others’ success! Long marriage, with wife passing only recently. Life of non envy, varied, stimulating. Farming stock, and values. Somewhat ‘laid back’…not fussed by others’s achievements! Unassuming…hardly a photo during his incredible career! Within his own family…successors, & continuity! His enduring realization that tangibles always at risk…such as family farm in depression, and lost! In contrast cerebral accomplishments lasting. Antibiotics Genius, Lessons!
