Microbiologist Phillip Furman is the inventor of AZT, an anti-HIV drug, and other antiviral drugs for Herpes and Hepatitis B and C. He talks about his breakthrough moments, the difficulties of taking “miracle” drugs to market, and the culture shock of moving from New York to Florida as a teenager. Furman’s interest in science was fueled at age 8 with the gifts of a microscope from an uncle and a chemistry set from his parents. His advice to researchers: “Follow the data. Negative results give you as much information as positive results." This episode was originally released on October 23, 2019.

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01
Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We'll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we'll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Richard Miles: 0:36
Treating viral diseases is hard, but not as hard as it used to be, thanks to the development of antiviral drugs. Welcome to Radio Cade, I'm your host, Richard Miles and today my guest is Phillip Furman, a microbiologist and the holder of 20 U.S. Patents. The inventor of AZT an anti-HIV drug, and a 2018 inductee into the Florida inventors hall of fame. Welcome to show Phillip and congratulations.

Phillip Furman: 1:00
Thank you very much, Richard.

Richard Miles: 1:01
So, the problem with interviewing super inventors like you is trying to focus on just one thing, but you have 20 patents, you've done a lot of things and you've developed antiviral drugs for herpes, HIV, hepatitis B and C. And we could talk about each one of those probably for a long time, but then we'd have to order in lunch, dinner, and probably sleeping bags for this session. So let's start though with a basic definition of viruses for listeners who may not be microbiologists , how viruses act in the body and how they can be treated.

Phillip Furman: 1:33
Well, viruses, some people think are very simple. They are an intracellular parasite. They have to infect a cell in order to be able to reproduce themselves and their basic components are there genetic information, a virus capsid, which surrounds them. It's a protein coat that protects them once they get into the cell. And some of them have a membrane, which they pick up when they are released from the cell, but viruses aren't quite that simple.

Richard Miles: 2:07
Spoiler alert, it's not that simple.

Phillip Furman: 2:08
They, a lot of them contain or code for proteins or enzymes, which function in the replication of the virus. Everybody thinks that well, once the virus gets into the cell, it requires the cell to produce enzymes and proteins that are essential for virus replication. And the buyer system takes that over and doesn't have any of its own proteins or enzymes to replicate itself, but indeed they do.

Richard Miles: 2:34
So you've been working on this for quite a long time. Right? You got your undergraduate degree in microbiology?

Phillip Furman: 2:40
In microbiology. Yes.

Richard Miles: 2:42
What was your big breakthrough? Which one of the antiviral drugs came first?

Phillip Furman: 2:46
Acyclovir was the first one I worked on.

Richard Miles: 2:49
And that's treatment for herpes viruses?

Phillip Furman: 2:52
Yes.

Richard Miles: 2:52