Gerhard Johannes Paul Domagk (German pronunciation: [ˈɡeːɐ̯haʁt ˈdoːmak]; 30 October 1895 – 24 April 1964) was a German scientist who studied diseases and bacteria.
He discovered a drug called sulfonamidochrysoidine (KL730), which works as an antibiotic. For this discovery, he was awarded the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The drug became the first antibiotic sold to the public and was sold under the name Prontosil.
While working at the University of Münster’s pathology department, Domagk was invited to join the IG Farben laboratory in Elberfeld (later Wuppertal) in 1927. His job was to test chemicals for possible medical uses. A new chemical made by scientists Friedrich Mietzsch and Joseph Klarer was found to fight bacteria that cause infections in humans, such as Streptococcus pyogenes. In 1935, Domagk’s daughter, Hildegarde, was injured and became very sick with a streptococcal infection. To save her life and avoid losing her arm, Domagk used the new chemical, which cured her infection. The drug, named Prontosil, became the first antibiotic sold for treating bacterial infections.
Domagk was chosen to receive the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the antibacterial effects of Prontosil. However, the Nazi government at the time stopped him from accepting the award. In 1947, after Nazi Germany fell, he was officially given the Nobel diploma and delivered a speech about his work.
Biography
Domagk was born in Lagow, Brandenburg, German Empire (now part of Poland). His father, Paul Richard Domagk, was a school teacher. He had an older brother named Erich, who died in childhood, and a younger sister named Charlotte. When he was five years old, in 1900, his father moved to Sommerfeld (now Lubsko, Poland). Domagk immediately began attending the Bismarck School, where he finished elementary school in 1910. Later, he went to Herzog-Heinrich School in Liegnitz, where he completed secondary school in 1914.
In 1914, Domagk entered the University of Kiel to study medicine. However, when World War I began, the university closed, and he returned to Sommerfeld. He joined the German Grenadier Regiment 7 as a volunteer along with 15 of his former school friends. During his first war experience in Flanders in October 1914, he narrowly avoided death, while 11 of his friends were killed. He was later transferred to the eastern front in Poland in December 1914, where he was shot in the head. He was sent to Lichterfelde near Berlin to recover from his injury. There, he received training as a medical orderly. In May 1915, he returned to the eastern front as a medic. He described the suffering and infections he saw on battlefields, saying, "There were terrible memories that followed me my whole life. They made me think about how to fight bacteria. I promised myself that if I survived, I would work to help solve this problem."
After the war ended in November 1918, Domagk resumed his medical studies at Kiel. His doctoral thesis, titled Influence of Creatinine Excretion in the Urine through Muscular Activity, was supervised by Max Buerger. He earned his degree in 1921. Between 1922 and 1923, he worked as an assistant to Georg Hoppe-Seyler at Kiel.
In 1923, Domagk met Walter Gross, the director of the Institute of Pathology at the University of Greifswald, at a conference in Leipzig. Gross was impressed with Domagk and hired him as a junior doctor at Greifswald. Gross supported Domagk’s research on phagocytosis, an immune process discovered by Russian scientist Elie Metchnikoff. This research allowed Domagk to use electricity, keep lights on for experiments, and let mice roam freely, which upset the janitor. Domagk’s thesis, Destroying Infectious Diseases through the Reticuloendothelium and the Development of Amyloid, published in 1924 in Virchows Archiv, was considered strong enough for him to be promoted to a full professor. However, Gross later moved to the University of Münster and invited Domagk to join him as a lecturer in the new Department of Experimental Pathology.
In 1925, Domagk married Gertrude Strube, who was then an advisor to the German Chamber of Commerce in Basel. They later had three sons and a daughter.
At Münster, Domagk felt the new department was not growing as he expected and was underpaid. The IG Farben branch in Elberfeld (later Wuppertal) noticed him and offered him a leadership role at their institute of experimental pathology. When he told his university in July 1927 about this opportunity and asked for an associate professor position, he received no response. He took a two-year unpaid leave and accepted IG Farben’s offer in 1929. However, another source claims he joined IG Farben in 1927.
Domagk became the director of the Institute of Pathology and Bacteriology at IG Farben’s laboratories in Wuppertal. There, he continued research started by Josef Klarer and Fritz Mietzsch, based on work by Paul Ehrlich, to use dyes—then a major product of the company—as antibiotics. He shifted his focus to tuberculosis and chemotherapy. He held this position until his retirement in 1961.
Along with Albert Einstein, Domagk was one of the sponsors of the Peoples’ World Convention (PWC), also known as the Peoples’ World Constituent Assembly (PWCA), which took place in 1950–51 at the Palais Electoral in Geneva, Switzerland.
Domagk died from a heart attack at his villa in the Black Forest village of Burgberg near Königsfeld, Schwarzwald. He was a Christian.
Achievements
Domagk's job at IG Farben was to test new chemical compounds, such as dyes, for their ability to kill germs. Scientists like Werner Schulemann, Friedrich Mietzsch, Hans Mauss, and Joseph Klarer were responsible for providing a steady supply of chemicals for testing. Since the late 1800s, azo dyes, used to color fabrics and other materials, were found to have medical benefits in fighting infections. For example, German scientist Paul Ehrlich used methylene blue, an azo dye, to kill malaria-causing parasites in animals and successfully treated two people with malaria in 1891. Later, Ehrlich and his students discovered that some azo dyes could also fight African sleeping sickness. In 1913, P. Eisenberg found that another azo dye, chrysoidine, could kill bacteria and act as a disinfectant. Inspired by these findings, IG Farben studied and modified azo dyes to create new medicines.
In the early 1930s, Mietzsch and Klarer created a benzene-based azo dye similar to chrysoidine. They added a sulphonamide group to the compound, forming sulfamidochrysoidine. They believed the sulphonamide part might make the compound useful as a medicine. The compound was labeled KL730. IG Farben received a German patent for this new compound in 1932.
The exact date when the compound was created is not known. Some sources say that IG Farben leader Heinrich Hörlein suggested using a sulfur group in azo dyes around 1932, but this may not be accurate. IG Farben had already received a patent for the first modified sulfamidochrysoidine on November 7, 1931, and another patent in December 1932. Early tests in 1931 showed weak effects against bacteria. At the time, scientists did not know that the active part of Prontosil was the sulphonamide, not the azo group. Also, sulphonamides alone were not antibacterial; they became effective only after being processed in the body. This is why early tests on bacteria in a lab failed.
In early 1931, Domagk tested the compound on mice with bacterial infections and found it worked against Gram-positive bacteria. He labeled the compound D 4145. He infected 26 mice with Streptococcus pyogenes and gave 12 of them Prontosil. All 12 mice survived, while the other 14 mice died by the fourth day. More tests followed, and in 1933, a boy was cured of a streptococcal infection. Domagk published his findings in 1935 in the journal Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift as "A contribution to the chemotherapy of bacterial infections."
At the time, there was no cure for streptococcal infections, and infected body parts were often removed to stop the infection from spreading. This practice still happens when infections cause severe tissue damage even after antibiotics are available. In 1935, Domagk's daughter, Hildegarde, injured her hand with a needle. She developed a severe infection and was nearly amputated, but she recovered after being treated with Prontosil.
By 1935, Mietzsch and Klarer had created two forms of the compound: one that did not dissolve well in water and one that did. The water-soluble version was named Streptozon, and the less soluble version was called Prontosil. Prontosil became the common name for both. Domagk used only the Streptozon form. He reported his findings in an article titled "Chemotherapy of streptococcus infection" in 1935.
In 1935, English doctor Leonard Colebrook tested Prontosil on mice and found it effective against some bacteria that caused puerperal fever. However, he noticed that surviving mice had kidney damage, which made him hesitant to test it on humans. Despite this, he treated two women with terminal puerperal fever and cured them. He later treated 64 women with the drug and shared his results in 1936. Prontosil became a major antibiotic for the next decade.
Sulfonamides were highly effective against bacteria at the time, better than phage therapy, but were later replaced by penicillin, which had fewer side effects. Sulfonamides could cause kidney stones and changes in bone marrow. However, Domagk's work on sulfonamides led to the development of drugs like thiosemicarbazone and isoniazid, which helped fight tuberculosis after World War II. Though Prontosil was no longer widely used after the 1960s, its derivatives are still used to treat bacterial and viral infections, especially in burns and urinary tract infections.
In 1932, Domagk discovered that benzyldimethyldodecylammonium chloride could kill germs. He tested it on various bacteria and published his findings in 1935, naming it Zephirol. He explained that applying Zephirol to the skin before surgery could prevent infections. Zephirol became a popular disinfectant and led to the development of quats, chemicals later used in detergents, fabric softeners, and hair conditioners.
From 1936 onward, Domagk focused on cancer treatment. In 1956, he developed a drug called E-39, which could destroy cancer cells in mice and rats. He noted that future medicines would need to target specific cancers precisely.
Nobel Prize and issues
In 1939, Domagk was chosen by the Nobel Foundation to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering Prontosil, the first antibiotic available for sale that could treat bacterial infections. However, the Nazi government prevented him from attending the ceremony. This happened because Carl von Ossietzky, a person who strongly opposed war and the Nazi government, had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. This upset the Nazi government, which had already imprisoned Ossietzky and later forced him to die in a concentration camp. In 1937, Adolf Hitler made a rule that stopped German citizens from accepting Nobel Prizes.
On October 27, 1939, Domagk received a message from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm stating he had won the Nobel Prize. He shared this news with Walter Mevius, the rector of the University of Münster, who then asked the German government for permission to allow Domagk to accept the award. Domagk also wrote to Hitler’s headquarters, promising to give 100,000 Deutsche Marks to support the war effort if allowed to receive the prize. On November 17, the Gestapo, a secret police force, arrested Domagk and held him for one week. He was released after officials confirmed he supported the German National Socialism and was loyal to the government. However, he was told he could only communicate with the Karolinska Institute through government departments like the Ministry of Education or Foreign Office and was forced to refuse the award. In Berlin, it was officially announced that Domagk had "rather regretfully declined" the prize.
Two years after World War II ended and the Nazi government fell, the Nobel Foundation gave Domagk the Nobel medal and a diploma in 1947. The money prize was not given because it had already been returned to the foundation.
Awards and honours
In 1939, Domagk was given the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. That same year, he also received the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics from the University of Edinburgh. In 1941, he was honored with the Medaglia Paterno (Rome) by the Kingdom of Italy and the Von-Klebelsberg-Medal and Prize by the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1942, he became a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
After the war, in 1947, Domagk was able to receive his Nobel Prize, but he did not get the money part of the prize because too much time had passed. In 1951, he was one of seven Nobel Laureates who attended the 1st Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. He received the El Soleil del Perú in 1952, the Pour le mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste in 1952, the Spanish Civil de Sanidad in 1953, the del Lobertador from the Republic of Venezuela in 1957, the Medal of the Rising Sun 2nd Class from Japan in 1960, and the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955. In 1952, he was elected chairman of the German Society of Pathology.
In 1959, Domagk became a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. A short biography about him was published by the Royal Society in 1964.
A public park called Domagkpark and a road called Domagkstraße in Munich are named after Domagk. In Münster, a research foundation called Krebsforschung Professor Dr. Gerhard Domagk (Cancer Research Professor Dr. Gerhard Domagk) was created in 1961. Also, the Gerhard-Domagk-Institut für Pathologie (Gerhard Domagk Institute of Pathology) was established at the University of Münster.