Edmund Carl Kornfeld (24 February 1919 – 22 June 2012) was an American organic chemist who devoted his life to the research of new drugs. His leading discovery, with the help of a team, was an antibiotic that was later named

vancomycin Vancomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic medication used to treat a number of bacterial infections. It is recommended intravenously as a treatment for complicated skin infections, bloodstream infections, endocarditis, bone and joint infections, ...

.Griffith RS. Introduction to vancomycin. Rev Infect Dis 1981;3:S200-4

Early life and education

Edmund Carl Kornfeld was born on February 24, 1919 in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

to Elsie and Julius Kornfeld. He received his AB from

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...

in 1940 and his PhD in chemistry from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1944.

Career

In 1946, he joined Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, Indiana, where most of his discoveries took place. Kornfeld and his team discovered a microbe, Streptomyces orientalis, which was found in soil samples from

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...

. In 1953, they discovered that this microbe produced a unique compound which had the remarkable property of killing all staphylococcal bacteria, including the penicillin-resistant strains. The drug’s ability to inhibit staphylococci was stable during early assays, suggesting that it might be clinically useful for a long period. One of the most difficult tasks that Kornfeld and his team faced was purifying the new compound. The purification method employed during that time utilised picric acid - a potentially explosive chemical; because of this an alternate process was developed. However, this new method yielded material with a purity of only 82% and when solubilized, produced a brown liquid aptly termed “Mississippi mud”. However, due to the need for an alternative to penicillin in resistant bacterial infections, the initial preparations were considered safe enough for use in humans. The drug was given to a patient who had developed a severe infection on his foot after surgery which was unresponsive to multiple antibiotics. The surgical staff recommended amputation or the usage of the new antibiotic. His answer was ‘ Anything that might save my foot’. Due to the spread of the bacteria, a high dosage the antibiotic of 05865 was recommended, 100 mg every eight hours, over five days. After the first day, the heat was decreasing, his white cell count was dropping and the exudate of his wound was less. During the next seven days, the staphylococci disappeared from the wound, and his foot was free from any sign of infection. Two months later he left the hospital with an intact foot. The new antibiotic was named

, from the term "vanquish" and was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1958. In 1956 with help from

Robert Burns Woodward Robert Burns Woodward (April 10, 1917 – July 8, 1979) was an American organic chemist. He is considered by many to be the most preeminent synthetic organic chemist of the twentieth century, having made many key contributions to the subject, e ...

, Kornfeld was successful in synthesizing the first lab produced lysergic acid (LSD).Edmund C. Kornfeld, E.J. Fornefeld, G. Bruce Kline, Marjorie J. Mann, Dwight E. Morrison, Reuben G. Jones and R.B. Woodward (1956). "The Total Synthesis of Lysergic Acid". Journal of the American Chemical Society 78: 3087-3114. Eli Lilly was looking for a treatment for anxiety, depression, psychosomatic diseases and addiction. Kornfeld's research also resulted in the discovery of

pergolide Pergolide, sold under the brand name Permax and Prascend (veterinary) among others, is an ergoline-based dopamine receptor agonist used in some countries for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease is associated with reduced do ...

as a medication for Parkinson's disease.

Published books

Condensation of heterocyclic bases with acetylene dicarboxylic ester. Publisher: Harvard University, 1945. The Total Synthesis of Lysergic Acid. Edmund C. Kornfeld, E. J. Fornefeld, G. Bruce Kline, Marjorie J. Mann, Dwight E. Morrison, Reuben G. Jones, R. B. Woodward.

References

External links

*L. Esposito, Anthony. "That Which Endures: The Quiet Heroes of Medical Discovery." www.wdms.org. Version Volume 75. Anthony L. Esposito, MD, FACP, 1 June 2011. Web. 22 Nov. 2011. http://www.wdms.org/html/womed_jul-aug11/womed_jul-aug11.pdf *Spink LW. Clinical and biologic significance of penicillin resistant staphylococci, including observations with streptomycin, aureomycin, chloramphenicol and terramycin. J Lab Clin Med 1951;37:278-93. *Cooper GL and Given DB. Vancomycin: A comprehensive review of 30 years of clinical experience. New York, NY, Park Row Publishers, Inc., 1986. *"The journal of organic chemistry." pubs.acs.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2011. http://pubs.acs.org/toc/joceah/16/1 *Dr Edmund Carl Kornfeld memorial at Find A Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/92929749 *Dr Edmund Carl Kornfeld memorial at Harry W. Moore Funeral Home https://archive.today/20130125062843/http://www.harrywmoore.com/book-of-memories/1248875/Kornfeld-Edmund/service-details.php {{DEFAULTSORT:Kornfeld, Edmund American chemists 1919 births Organic chemists 2012 deaths Temple University alumni Harvard University alumni