The tetracyclines, a large family of antibiotics, were discovered as natural products by Benjamin Minge Duggar in 1945 and first prescribed in 1948.[16] Under Yellapragada Subbarow, Benjamin Duggar made his discovery of the first tetracycline antibiotic, chlortetracycline (Aureomycin), at Lederle Laboratories in 1945.[17]
In 1950, Harvard University professor Robert Burns Woodward determined the chemical structure of the related substance, oxytetracycline (Terramycin); the patent protection for its fermentation and production was also first issued in 1950. A research team of eight scientists (K.J. Brunings, Francis A. Hochstein, Frederick J. Pilgrim C.R. Stephens, Lloyd Hillyard Conover, Abraham Bavley, Richard Pasternack, and Peter P. Regna) at Pfizer,[18][19] in collaboration with Woodward, participated in the two-year research leading to the discovery.[20]
Pfizer was of the view that it deserved the right to a patent on tetracycline and filed its Conover application in October 1952. Cyanamid filed its Boothe-Morton application for similar rights in March 1953, while Heyden Chemicals filed its Minieri application in September 1953, named after scientist P. Paul Minieri, to obtain a patent on tetracycline and its fermentation process. This resulted in tetracycline litigation in which the winner would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt of priority invention and tetracycline’s natural state.[21]
Nubian mummies studied in the 1990s were found to contain significant levels of tetracycline; the beer brewed at the time could have been the source.[22] Tetracycline sparked the development of many chemically altered antibiotics, so has proved to be one of the most important discoveries made in the field of antibiotics.[citation needed] It is used to treat many Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.[citation needed] Like some other antibiotics, it is also used in the treatment of acne.