Reactions
Letters to the editor Trailblazers 2024 Among historic trailblazers from Latin America in the Sept. 16/23, 2024, issue of C&EN (page 64), a key scientist, Miguel Ondetti, was omitted. He was an Argentine chemist who moved to the US and worked at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research in New Jersey. There he discovered the first angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. Scientists in South America had demonstrated that the venom of the South American pit viper, Bothrops jararaca , contained several peptides, which potentiated the effect of bradykinin that led to blood pressure drops observed after a viper’s bite. These bradykinin-potentiating peptides inhibited ACE. This therapeutic potential was noted by Ondetti and David Cushman, who used these peptides as a template to design captopril in 1975. Making an orally bioavailable peptide was not considered feasible at that time, until captopril was designed, and this endeavor took several years of commitment.
Publication Details
- Journal
- C&EN Global Enterprise
- Published
- 2024-11-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/cen-10236-reactions
- Primary Topic
- Venomous Animal Envenomation and Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00