Elizabeth Lee Hazen and Rachel Fuller Brown were researchers for the New York State Department of Health-Division of Laboratories and Research. Their discovery was made in 1950. Hazen worked in New York City and Brown in Albany. Hazen would culture organisms from soil samples and test them against the fungi Candida albicans and Cryptococcus neoformans. If she found a substance with an activity she would mail the soil sample (in a mason jar) to Albany so Brown could extract the active substance. The active substance was mailed back to New York City to test against the fungi. If the substance still showed activity it was tested in animals. Almost all the substances were highly toxic to animals. However, there was one substance extracted from a soil sample from one of Hazen’s neighbors, the Walter B. Nourses. It is ironic that of all the soil samples tested from around the world, the one that passed all the tests was from a neighbor of Hazen’s. They named the bacterium Streptomyces noursei, after the Nourses. Hazen and Brown named the substance nystatin, after the New York Health Department. The patent right was purchased by E.R. Squibb & Co. The royalties were funneled back into research via the Hazen-Brown Research Fund for research grants in the life sciences. A sum of some 13 million dollars.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nystatin#History
https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/elizabeth-lee-hazen-and-rachel-fuller-brown
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