- Person
- Paul Ehrlich
- Lived
- 1854–1915
- Field
- Immunology & chemotherapy
- From
- German
The story
Paul Ehrlich became fascinated by staining as a schoolboy in Breslau, inspired by his cousin Karl Weigert, who owned one of the first microtomes and was the first person to stain bacteria with dyes. When Ehrlich began studying medicine in 1872, at Breslau, Strasbourg and Freiburg, he kept experimenting with the brilliant new aniline dyes, testing how each one coloured different tissues.
As a medical student in Freiburg in the winter semester of 1875–76, he noticed something striking. In cells then thought to be plasma cells, a basic dye revealed a mass of large granules that took up the colour in an unusual way. Friedrich von Recklinghausen had reported granulated cells in unstained tissue in 1863, but Ehrlich was the first to characterise them by their staining. He believed the abundant granules were a sign that the cells were well nourished, so he named them Mastzellen, or mast cells, from the German word Mast for the rich feed used to fatten animals.
He described the cells in his doctoral dissertation, Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Histological Staining, which earned him his medical doctorate at Leipzig in 1878. Its focus on the chemistry of dyes was unusual for a medical thesis. His explanation of the granules turned out to be wrong, but the name has been used ever since, and at the Charité hospital in Berlin he went on to pick out mast cells among the white blood cells by their granules.
For decades their purpose remained a mystery. In 1937 researchers found that tissues rich in mast cells contained large amounts of heparin. In 1947 the researcher Rocha e Silva showed that mast cells release both heparin and histamine, and in 1952 the researchers Riley and West identified them as a storage site for histamine. Mast cells then became a major focus of allergy research.
Today mast cells are seen as sentinels of the immune system. When triggered, they release histamine and other chemicals stored in their granules, causing the swelling and itching of allergies and, in extreme cases, anaphylaxis. They also help defend the body against parasites and other invaders and take part in wound healing. Scientists now identify them with a range of stains, such as toluidine blue and Giemsa, in the tradition Ehrlich began.
Why it matters
Understanding mast cells, the cells that store and release histamine, underlies modern research on and treatment of allergies, anaphylaxis and eczema.
About Paul Ehrlich
Nobel-winning German Jewish physician who imagined the “magic bullet”, founded chemotherapy and, with Salvarsan in 1909, produced the first effective drug against syphilis.
More about Paul Ehrlich
- Paul Ehrlich's maxim is the first rule of drug designPaul Ehrlich summed up a basic law of pharmacology in four Latin words, corpora non agunt nisi fixata: a drug acts only when it is bound to its target.
- Paul Ehrlich's dyes revealed the blood-brain barrierPaul Ehrlich noticed that dyes injected into the bloodstream coloured nearly every organ except the brain, an early clue to the blood-brain barrier that protects our nervous system.
- Paul Ehrlich's dyes founded modern haematologyUsing the new synthetic dyes of the 1870s and 1880s, Paul Ehrlich learned to tell the different kinds of white blood cells apart, laying the foundations of modern blood science.
- Paul Ehrlich improved the tuberculosis test overnightThe day after Robert Koch announced the tuberculosis bacterium in March 1882, Paul Ehrlich improved Koch's method of staining it, making the deadly germ far easier to detect.
- Paul Ehrlich's "magic bullet" cured syphilisPaul Ehrlich imagined a "magic bullet" that would strike disease without harming the patient, and in 1909 his lab found Salvarsan, the first modern antimicrobial drug and first cure for syphilis.
- Paul Ehrlich treated malaria with a synthetic dyeNoticing that malaria parasites soak up methylene blue, Paul Ehrlich tried the dye as a treatment, and two patients' fevers subsided, an early step toward designed synthetic drugs.
- Paul Ehrlich foresaw antibodies and receptorsPaul Ehrlich's side-chain theory proposed that cells carry receptors that bind specific toxins, an idea about antibodies that helped earn him the 1908 Nobel Prize.
- Paul Ehrlich made diphtheria antitoxin reliableWorking with Emil von Behring in the 1890s, Paul Ehrlich devised ways to measure the strength of diphtheria antitoxin, so doctors could give children safe, reliable doses.
- Paul Ehrlich’s trypan red opened the attack on trypanosomesScreening over 100 dyes in Frankfurt, Paul Ehrlich’s team found trypan red, which killed trypanosomes in infected animals, an early chemotherapy victory that led to arsenic drugs.
Sources
- Paul Ehrlich Wikipedia
- Mast cell Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.