Biographical Memoirs Volume 66 (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Max Tishler
Max Tishler
Pages 352-369
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From page 353... ...
At Merck he led research teams whose work was of enormous importance for human health, resulting in practical processes for synthesizing ascorbic acid, riboflavin, cortisone, miamin, pyridoxin, pantothenic acid, nicotinamide, methionine, threonine, and tryptophan. He also lee!
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From page 354... ...
He held jobs as a baker's delivery boy, a newspaper seller, and a telephone answerer. After all this his career took a crucial turn when he got a job as a pharmacist's assistant with duties that included tending the soda fountain as well as what is more importantpackaging en cl delivering drugs.
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From page 355... ...
Thus, he was able to use the Merck sales base—chemical commodities such as iodine, silver nitrate, ether, and chloroform as a platform for building a more innovative organization. George Merck's ambition was to convert a company making fine chemicals into one creating new therapeutic agents for humanity.
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From page 356... ...
In 1948 Philip Hench at the Mayo Clinic discovered that cortisone had a unique effect on inflamed joints in an arthritic patient. Suddenly, a pressing public demand for thousands of
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From page 357... ...
As a result, the black-bordered insert expressing regret at the limited availability of cortisone that accompanied Merck's first announcements of the compound's medical utility, gradually disappeared. Max Tishier and his team came through with the most complex manufacturing process ever undertaken in the pharmaceutical industry.
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From page 358... ...
This wholly admirable trait caused not a little grief to those of us with enough pride to want to clean up our own disasters, but it sure taught us to do it quickly! But Max's successes far outweighed the reverses and brought him broad scientific recognition.
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From page 359... ...
~ (Lewis Sarett) do believe Max tried to delegate as far as he could, but it came very hard to him.
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From page 360... ...
Visitors to his office would find that unless they covered the ground quickly, Max would glance pointedly and disconcertingly at his wristwatch, knowing that several consultees were awaiting their turns. Professor Donald Cram, who spent a short period in the Merck research laboratories working on the penicillin project, has quoted from his first interview with Max (Chemtech, December 1986, p.
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From page 361... ...
Cram: My draft board told me to leave school and get a job to aid the war effort. I fully intend to return to....
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From page 362... ...
Thus, more than thirty years ago, when the scientific and therapeutic achievements of the pharmaceutical industry were called in question by a few witnesses who appeared before the Kefauver Committee, Max like many other scientists was outraged by what he felt was unfair criticism based on distortion of the facts. Feeling that objective anti unimpeachably authoritative observers would agree with him, he conceived the iclea of asking such observers to recognize publicly the contributions the industry had made to saving life and protecting health.
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From page 363... ...
Among these were many vitamins essential to life and growth; cortisone and other steroids; drugs effective against high blood pressure and congestive heart failure sure as chIorothiazide, hycirochiorothiazicle, and later methy~clopa; indomethacin, the first clinically important nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agent; antidepressants; vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella; and animal health drugs such as the coccidiostat sulfaquinoxaline and the anthelmintic thiabendazole. Max's career took a new turn in 1969 when he was promoted from the research division to the newly created corporate position of senior vice-president for science and technology.
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From page 364... ...
The institute's microbiologists produced certain fermentation broths and, at Max's suggestion, these were screened at Merck for possible antiparasitic activity. Activity was indeed detected, and this quickly led to the avermectin family of compounds, which have proved effective not only against a wide variety of internal and external parasites of animals but also against the fly-borne parasite that causes onchocerciasis (river blindness)
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From page 365... ...
The late Dr. Sidney Farber, a great pathologist who set up the Dana Farber Institute in Boston, once invited me to come up and see some of the children who had been getting actinomycin.
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From page 366... ...
366 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS one to dwell in the past. In the same interview he went on to say, "I wish I were twenty-five years younger.
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From page 367... ...
The chemical nature of actinomycin, an antimicrobial substance produced by Actinomyces antibioticus. [ournal of Biological Chemistry 142:519.
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From page 368... ...
77:6365. 1959 Role of the drug house in biological and medical research.
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From page 369... ...
TO—Journal of Scientific Technical Research 36:37. Annual chemistry lecture presented December 7, 1964, to the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering ~ .
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