INVENTORS HALL OF FAME
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Ring in Penicillin |
Born in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1915, John C. Sheehan graduated from Battle Creek College and received his master's and Ph.D. degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Michigan. He began a 31-year teaching career at MIT in 1946.
Sheehan's inventiveness extended beyond medical science. At the beginning of World War II, he and W.E. Bachmann of the University of Michigan devised a new and practical method of manufacturing the important military high explosive RDX (cyclonite), which replaced TNT as the basic explosive for rocket, bomb, and torpedo warheads.
In 1953-54, he served as a scientific liaison officer with the American Embassy in London for the Office of Naval Research. He was later a scientific adviser to presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Sir Alexander Fleming's 1928 discovery of penicillin in bread mold was a tremendous breakthrough for medical science. Unfortunately, Flemings process for harvesting the antibiotic took months to generate a small amount. During World War II, as demand for penicillin rose, researchers worked feverishly to synthesize the penicillin molecule. More than a thousand scientists in 39 U.S. labs became involved in the project. But when the war ended and the molecule still had not revealed its structure, the funds for research ended.
From 1948 to 1957, only one laboratory continued the research--John Sheehan's. In March of 1957, while a professor at MIT, Sheehan announced the first rational total synthesis of natural penicillin. The following year, he reported a general total synthesis of penicillins.
Sheehan continued research and was awarded more than 40 patents in his lifetime. He died in March of 1992.
The above information was supplied by the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc., Room 1D01-Crystal Plaza 3, 2021 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Virginia 22202. Videotapes and printed materials are currently available. For more information, visit the Foundation's web site at: http://www.invent.org
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