Erythromycin (Iloilo soil sample)
Eritromicina (muestra de suelo de Iloílo)
- Date
- 1949 (publicada en 1952) · confidence high
- Place
- Iloilo City, Panay, Philippines
- Credited to
- Abelardo B. Aguilar (sample) and J. M. McGuire (Eli Lilly)
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Filipino scientist Abelardo Aguilar sent soil samples from Iloilo to Eli Lilly in 1949, where McGuire isolated the macrolide antibiotic erythromycin from the actinomycete Streptomyces erythreus. Lilly marketed it in 1952 as Ilosone, a nod to Iloilo.
Aguilar received neither royalties nor official credit from Lilly for decades, and that account rests largely on later testimony. The isolation was published by Lilly's team in 1952.
What it led to
- an alternative to penicillin for the allergic and for resistant bacteria
- the macrolide family (clarithromycin, azithromycin)
- controversy over recognition of the Filipino scientist