It was discovered by a Japanese researcher who basically they were looking for microorganisms

that secrete substances that kill other organisms because they figured if they could isolate

that substance they could use it as medicines to try to kill infections.

And it's such an interesting story because it's a professor named Satoshi Amuro who is

a microbiologist in Japan and he was looking for taking soil samples on a golf course in

Japan and he found this organism and then in the lab they noticed that this substance that

they secrete it is a bacteria called streptomyces which is well known.

What's interesting is the particular form that makes the Ivermectin family of compounds

has only ever been found in Japan.

Really?

Yeah, it hasn't been found anywhere else.

What they found was that it was really toxic to nematodes or worms or parasites.

And so it was very quickly discovered to be a highly effective parasitic agent with

almost no toxicity.

What year we talked about?

This is mid to late 70s when it was discovered that we were studying development.

They were a partnership between the Institute of Professor Amuro.

There's a man named William Campbell, a chemist with Merck who then purified it from its original

compound which is Ivermectin to Ivermectin and they saw that it was a really powerful

antiparasitic and so they developed a medicine.

Here's what we now know about Ivermectin.

It's this incredible drug because it not only has antiparasitic properties, it has antibacterial

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