Medicine

In the 1970s, microbiologist Satoshi Ōmura at Japan's Kitasato Institute isolated a soil bacterium that produced compounds effective against parasitic worms. Working under a partnership with Merck, parasitologist William C. Campbell's team refined these compounds into ivermectin, a veterinary treatment approved in 1981 and later adapted into Mectizan, approved for human use in 1987 to treat river blindness. Merck committed to donating Mectizan indefinitely to combat the disease, and Ōmura and Campbell shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery.

University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemist Karl Paul Link and his lab isolated an anticoagulant compound from spoiled sweet clover hay in 1939, after a Wisconsin farmer's cattle began hemorrhaging from the moldy feed. Their research led to warfarin, marketed first as a rat poison in 1948 and later approved as the blood-thinning drug warfarin sodium (Coumadin) in 1954. It remains one of the world's most widely prescribed anticoagulants.

The antihistamine Benadryl has provided temporary relief from allergy symptoms for millions of people since it was developed by George Rieveschl at a University of Cincinnati laboratory in the early 1940s and later approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Rieveschl was originally studying muscle relaxants when he discovered the compound diphenhydramine hydrochloride. He sold it under the name ‘Benadryl,’ among others.

In its infancy, Hangar Nine housed Curtiss JN-4s ("Jennys") like the one Charles Lindbergh landed there when he reported for duty as a flying cadet in 1924.

As the U.S. was preparing to enter World War I, the Army raced to build an entire airfield, complete with 16 wooden hangars, successfully completing it in less than a year. The last remaining World War I facility of its kind, Hangar Nine at Brooks Air Force Base represents the emergence of fast-track construction methods using available materials and the skills of a local workforce.