Discovery provides reminder of bacteriology prof

Like all buildings that have been occupied for many years, E.B. Fred Hall accumulated its fair share of junk during its 50-year history. But while combing through the clutter from a 10-by-12-foot safe in the basement of the old research facility — slated for demolition in early 2004 — bacteriology professor Gary Roberts uncovered an item of unusual value.

Hidden among cases of journal reprints, old departmental records, antique laboratory equipment and even a box of dirt, Roberts discovered several tightly capped, clear brown bottles containing a colorless, crystalline compound hand-labeled “oligomycin.”

He recognized the material as an expensive antibiotic discovered in the 1950s by bacteriology professor Elizabeth McCoy and still sold as a research chemical today. The small oligomycin stash not only serves as a reminder of one of the Bacteriology Department’s most esteemed scientists of the past, but might also provide a modest income to the department in the future.

In preparation for the demolition of Fred Hall, Roberts volunteered to sift through the debris left by past occupants. “I’m somewhat into history, probably because I’m getting old,” Roberts jokes.

Roberts joined the bacteriology department as a post-doctoral researcher in 1975. Though McCoy had retired two years earlier, she was still very much a fixture of the department.

“Everyone knew her,” Roberts recalls. “And I used to hear people commenting that on her laboratory shelves she had the world’s supply of oligomycin, and how it was kind of pricey. So, occasionally it crossed my mind after she died, “I wonder what happened to the oligomycin.'”

McCoy and graduate student Robert Smith first isolated oligomycin from the fungus Streptomyces diastatochromogenes in the early 1950s as part of an extensive program to identify and develop novel antibiotics. After discovering that oligomycin selectively killed fungal pathogens of plants without harming root-nodule and other beneficial bacteria, McCoy teamed with several campus colleagues to develop it into a treatment for plant diseases, including oak wilt and Dutch elm disease, caused by fungi. At the same time, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer launched a development program.

A native of Madison, McCoy earned a bachelor’s degree from the UW in 1925 and a Ph.D. in bacteriology, under the direction of E.B. Fred, in 1929. After a year of postdoctoral studies in Europe, she returned as a faculty member, eventually becoming the second woman outside the university’s schools of Nursing and Home Economics (now Human Ecology) to attain the rank of full professor.

McCoy studied seemingly everything in the microbiological universe, from applied topics, such as antibiotic production and commercial fermentations, to basic subjects like the role of bacteria in Lake Mendota.

“Elizabeth was a great microbiologist — there’s no question about it,” says emeritus biochemistry professor Robert Burris, who knew McCoy since his days as a bacteriology graduate student in the 1930s. “She was an extremely smart person who knew practically all aspects of bacteriology. In an unprejudiced way, I’d say she was the best bacteriologist in the department.”

McCoy garnered numerous scientific honors during her career, as well as national press attention. “Wisconsin University Girl Wins Patent on an Industrial Solvent” blared a 1946 headline in the New York Times, after McCoy was granted a patent, through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, on a process to ferment molasses into the solvent butyl alcohol. Never mind, says Roberts, that at the time this “girl” was 43 years old and a full professor.

Despite extensive efforts by McCoy and Pfizer, oligomycin never fulfilled its promise as a new antibiotic. Annual progress reports filed by McCoy noted that the compound moved poorly through plant tissues after being administered to roots, indicating it wouldn’t work as a systemic agent. It also proved toxic to adult plants and seedlings.

“No practical usage was found,” concluded a 1960 report by WARF, which held a patent on McCoy’s method to isolate oligomycin.

Nonetheless, the antibiotic has persisted as a research chemical. Oligomycin inhibits a key enzyme in the mitochondria of cells, making it useful for studies of cellular respiration, the process by which cells convert the energy stored in the sugar glucose to a form that can fuel a cell’s chemical reactions. The chemical company Sigma-Aldrich currently sells oligomycin for roughly $4,000 a gram.

Chances are the McCoy supply of oligomycin is still potent, although it needs to be tested. Oligomycin, like other macrolide antibiotics, is highly stable when stored dry at room temperature, says pharmacology professor Bernard Weisblum — just the conditions that existed in Fred Hall’s basement safe.

Given its potential value, Glenn Chambliss, chair of the bacteriology department, plans to assign the oligomycin to WARF for licensing. The compound can’t be patented; McCoy’s original patent on the antibiotic expired years ago. But the foundation can still sell it to Sigma or another chemical company as a simple “biological material.” Any proceeds from the sale would return to the bacteriology department.