Celebrate NJ! Science, Technology & Environment

Lloyd H. Conover By Laura Willis June 3, 2010

Lloyd H. Conover was born in 1923 in Orange, NJ. He earned his Ph.D from the University of Rochester in 1950. He planned to become a professor, but instead joined the chemical research facility of Pfizer. At Pfizer, he joined the team for the molecular architecture of the broad-spectrum antibiotics Terramycin and Aureomycin.

            He and his team (with the help of Harvard Professor R.B. Woodward) discovered the possibility of chemically altering an antibiotic to create other antibiotics, which would treat numerous kinds of bacterial infections. In 1952, Conover invented Tetracycline, which was the first superior drug to be made in that way. Three years later, it was the most prescribed antibiotic in America.

            Tetracycline is still used today to fight many bacterial infections, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever, typhus, Lyme disease, skin infections, and acne. Without Tetracycline, we probably would not have some of the most useful antibiotics that we do today, because the invention of Tetracycline created a search for more antibiotics like it, and most are very important today.

After the success of Tetracycline, Conover, with the assistance of W.C. Austin and J.W. Woodward, invented Pyrantel and Morantel, two anthelmintic drugs (anthelmintic drugs are used to cure parasitic worm infections). Pyrantel is still used to treat most of the intestinal parasites in humans, and both Pyrantel and Morantel are used to treat the parasitic worms in farm animals and pets.

            Without Lloyd H. Conover, we would not have the antibiotics that we have today and we wouldn’t be able to cure as many bacterial infections that we can today. Many more of our animal companions would also have worms, and some of us humans would, too. Without Lloyd H. Conover, modern medicine would not be the same.