Timelines: 1932
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Antibacterials
The fight against infection
Gerhard Domagk in his lab
Gerhard Domagk, director of the Bayer Institute of Pathology and Bacteriology in Wuppertal, Germany, discovers that a red industrial dye derived from sulfanilamide exhibits antibiotic properties and can be used to treat staph infections. Bayer patents and markets the drug under the name Prontosil. Domagk is invited to Stockholm in 1939 to receive a Nobel Prize in Medicine, but the Nazi regime persuades him to refuse it.
