Many of us probably have never heard of Jerome Horwitz, but there are few who have done as much for public health and infection prevention as he has. Dr. Horwitz synthesized the nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitors, AZT, d4t and ddC back in the 1960's as potential chemotherapeutic agents. They were pulled off the shelves in the 1980's and 1990's and proved to be some of the first successful antivirals effective against HIV and served as a model for future discoveries. Sadly, he never obtained patents on these agents and thus, someone else profited from his genius and efforts. To read more about Dr. Horwitz, please read the
obituary in the NYT.
A couple errors are present in the current obit: Dr. Horwitz discovered zalcitabine (ddC) and not didanosine (ddI) and it is stuvadine (d4T) and not "stauvidine" that he synthesized.
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