Before Translational Medicine: The Development of Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs)

Time: 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.

Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Free

Open to the public

This talk will focus on the work of a Wellcome Trust–funded project entitled “Before Translational Medicine,” which looks at bench-to-bedside relations in medical research before the terms “translational medicine” (TM) and “translational research” (TR) came into vogue in the 1990s. The emphasis in most characterizations of TM is the translation of laboratory findings into clinical applications, and the heavy recent heavy investment in the field has been to try and improve the speed and efficacy of the movement of ideas, materials, instruments, etc., into new therapies, diagnostic tools, etc. Early discussions of TM recognized that translational research should be “a two-way road,” but recognized that “Bedside to Bench efforts have regrettably been relegated to a Cinderella role.” An important aim of the Before TM project is to recover stories of bedside to bench, and that of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) is a case in point.

The term NSAID was first used in the mid-1960s with regard to drugs such as amidopyrine, cinchophen, and phenylbutazone. The search for this class of drugs was stimulated by the benefits and problems of corticosteroids in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The benefits were in the control of inflammation in rheumatism and many other diseases. The problems were their side effects, many of which could be serious. The experience of steroids in the clinic led to a demand for drugs with the efficacy of steroids without the side effects. Worboys’s research explores how this demand stimulated research and development on anti-inflammatory agents in the pharmaceutical industry and other sites, and at the introduction of a novel class of drugs, which, interestingly, are first defined by what they are not.

Michael Worboys recently retired from the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester, where he was director from 2002. His main work has been on the history of communicable diseases, publishing monographs on the development and spread of germ theories of diseases, rabies, and fungal infections. He is now Emeritus Professor and leading two projects. The first, which brings him to CHF as a 2015 Haas Fellow, is on translational medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, and the development of NSAIDs. The second is on the dog in the history of the biological and biomedical sciences, and how research on and with dogs, especially in physiology, genetics, and psychology, has shaped human-dog relationships.

About Brown Bag Lectures

Brown Bag Lectures (BBLs) are a series of weekly informal talks on the history of chemistry or related subjects, including the history and social studies of science, technology, and medicine. Based on original research (sometimes still in progress), these talks are given by local scholars for an audience of CHF staff and fellows and interested members of the public.

For more information, please call 215.873.8289 or e-mail bbl@chemheritage.org.