Daniele Bovet | Biography

A gifted researcher in therapeutic chemistry, Daniele Bovet was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland, one of four children of a professor of experimental education. Bovet studied zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Geneva, receiving his doctor of science degree in 1929. He then joined the Pasteur Institute in Paris, becoming director of the Laboratory of Therapeutic Chemistry in 1936.

In 1935 a German biochemist, Gerhard Domagk, discovered that the orange-red dye sulfamyldiamino benzene killed streptococci (disease-causing bacteria). Bovet noted that while the dye killed the bacteria in the human body, it failed to do so in laboratory cultures. He theorized that the dye must be broken down into simpler compounds in the body, and that one of these simpler substances worked against the streptococci. Accordingly, Bovet broke down the dye and isolated its compounds, one of which was sulfanilamide, which Bovet showed in 1935 killed streptococci in both the body and cultures. He then synthesized derivatives of the sulfanilamide molecule, creating a whole range of sulfa drugs that effectively fought bacterial infection with few side effects.

Next, Bovet investigated histamine, thought to cause allergy symptoms. No antagonist of histamine was known, so Bovet--with his research student Anne-Marie Staub--began studying substances that blocked hormones similar to histamine. By 1937 he had produced the first antihistamine, thymoxydiethylamine. Since this substance was too toxic for human use, Bovet and Staub performed thousands more experiments seeking less toxic antihistamines. This work formed the basis for the development of subsequent clinically useful antihistamines.

In 1939 Bovet married the Italian Filomena Nitti, with whom he then collaborated on his research. In 1947 Bovet became an Italian citizen and head of the Laboratory of Therapeutic Chemistry of the Instituto Superiore di Sanita in Rome. There, he worked to develop a synthetic curare, which had valuable potential as a muscle relaxant in surgery, allowing lower doses of anesthesia. Bovet produced the first effective synthetic curare in 1946 and went on to create over 400 more of these compounds, including succinylcholine, which came into wide surgical use. Bovet received the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology for his work in 1957. During the 1960s, he investigated the interaction between chemicals and the brain, hoping to clarify the causes of mental illness. He was a professor of pharmacology at the University of Sassari from 1964 to 1969, became professor of psychobiology at the University of Rome in 1971, and then directed another pharmacology laboratory in Rome until 1975.