Rachel Fuller Brown (November 23, 1898 – January 14, 1980) was a chemist best known for her long-distance collaboration with microbiologist Elizabeth Lee Hazen in developing the first useful antifungal antibiotic, Nystatin, while doing research for the Division of Laboratories and Research of the New York State Department of Health. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994.
Nystatin, still produced today under various trade names, not only cures a variety of potentially devastating fungal infections, but has also been used to combat Dutch Elm disease in trees and to restore artwork damaged by water and mold.
Penicillin had been discovered in 1928, and in the years that followed, antibiotics were increasingly used to fight bacterial illness. However, one side effect was that these antibiotics allowed for a rapid growth of fungus, which could lead to sore mouths or upset stomachs. Other fungal diseases without cures including infections attacking the central nervous system, athlete’s foot, and ring worms were also a major problem during this time. However, fungal diseases were not well understood at this time, and there were no antifungal medications safe for human use. At this time, people knew of microorganisms called actinomycetes that lived in soil and were known to produce antibiotics, some of which killed fungus. However, these antibiotics also proved fatal in tests involving lab mice and thus could not be put into production.
In her New York City laboratory, Hazen cultured organisms found in soil samples and tested their ability to fight against two fungi: Cryptococcus neoformans, a fungus responsible for the chronic disease cryptococcosis, which affects lungs, skin, and other body parts like the central nervous system, and Candida albicans, which causes candidiasis, which can be minor in some cases (e.g. a vaginal yeast infection), or a serious infection in patients treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics. If she found such promising antifungal activity in a particular culture, she would mail it to Brown in a mason jar.
At her end, Brown isolated the active agent in the culture, or the ingredient in the soil sample that could potentially be used to cure these fungal diseases. This required meticulous labor as well as a great deal of patience and paintstaking attention to detail. After isolating the active ingredient, Brown would return the sample to Hazen in New York, where it was retested against the two fungi. If effective, the toxicity was then evaluated in animals.
Nystatin was also the first antifungal antibiotic to be safe and effective in treating human diseases. Not only did it cure many serious fungal infections of the skin, mouth, throat, and intestinal tract, but it could also be combined with antibacterial drugs to balance their side effects.
Royalties for Nystatin totaled $13.4 million. As Brown and Hazen did not want any of the money for themselves, the philanthropic Research Corporation used half for grants to further scientific research and the other half to support what became known as the Brown-Hazen Fund.
Both Brown and Hazen received many awards for their collaborative work, the first major prize being the Quibb Award in Chemotherapy in 1955. Brown was also elected fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1957. On Brown’s retirement in 1968, she received the Distinguished Service Award of the New York Department of Health. In 1972, she was also given the Rhoda Benham Award of the Medical Mycological Society of the Americas. Brown and Hazen were the first women ever to receive, in 1975, the American Institute of Chemists’ Chemical Pioneer Award.
