Frank Rose (chemist)
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Francis Leslie Rose (27 June 1909 – 3 March 1988) was a
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...
. Francis Leslie Rose (always known as Frank Rose) was born in Lincoln on 27 June 1909, the second son of Frederick Will Rose, a clerk to a firm of solicitors in Lincoln, and Elisabeth Ann (née Watts). Coming from a family with many church choristers, he taught himself to play the piano, and soon became “accompanist in chief”. He joined the choir of St Martin's Church, Lincoln at age 6, and also taught himself to play the organ. Rose was later to be appointed organist and choirmaster at Ruskington before going up to university.


Education

Rose attended St Faith’s Primary School and Christ’s Hospital Continuation School before gaining a scholarship at age 9 to Lincoln City School. He was much influenced by the senior chemistry master there. At age 16 he was interviewed by Professor Frederic Kipping, FRS at Nottingham, and offered a place in two years’ time. He gained a first class degree, largely thanks to the quality of Kipping’s teaching.


Scientific career

Rose stayed on at Nottingham for his PhD, during which time he attracted the attention of the Dyestuffs Division of ICI. They wanted new types of intermediate for direct azo dyes, a problem which Rose solved in 1932 with a method suitable for large scale manufacture. This success led to his being recruited that year by ICI. Four years later the management decided that they would enter the pharmaceuticals field, and Rose was to be part of the group. “From that time until his death 52 years later Rose was entirely consumed by his love for the biological activity of chemicals.” In the new Medical Chemicals Section of the ICI (later Pharmaceuticals Division, which ended up demerged into
Zeneca Zeneca (officially Zeneca Group PLC) was a British multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was formed in June 1993 by the demerger of the pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals businesses of Imperial Chemi ...
) at
Blackley Blackley is a suburban area of Manchester, in the county of Greater Manchester, England. Historically in Lancashire, it is approximately north of Manchester city centre, on the River Irk. History The hamlet of Blackley was mentioned in the Do ...
he was joined by Frank Curd and other dyestuff chemists. The initial task was to find a patentable analog of
Prontosil Prontosil is an antibacterial drug of the sulfonamide group. It has a relatively broad effect against gram-positive cocci but not against enterobacteria. One of the earliest antimicrobial drugs, it was widely used in the mid-20th century but is ...
, which was in turn developed by
Bayer Bayer AG (English: , commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies and biomedical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer' ...
as a patentable
prodrug A prodrug is a pharmacologically inactive medication or compound that, after intake, is metabolized (i.e., converted within the body) into a pharmacologically active drug. Instead of administering a drug directly, a corresponding prodrug can be ...
of
sulfonamide In organic chemistry, the sulfonamide functional group (also spelled sulphonamide) is an organosulfur group with the Chemical structure, structure . It consists of a sulfonyl group () connected to an amine group (). Relatively speaking this gro ...
, and Rose developed sulphamezathine.https://www.academia.edu/7066790/WAR_AND_CHANGE_IN_THE_PHARMACEUTICAL_INDUSTRY_A_COMPARATIVE_STUDY_OF_BRITAIN_AND_FRANCE_IN_THE_TWENTIETH_CENTURY After the start of
WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
Rose's section was tasked to manufacture drugs made exclusively in Germany (like was made during WWI with
arsphenamine Arsphenamine, also known as Salvarsan or compound 606, is an antibiotic drug that was introduced at the beginning of the 1910s as the first effective treatment for the deadly infectious diseases syphilis, relapsing fever, and African trypanosomi ...
), including
antimalarial medication Antimalarial medications or simply antimalarials are a type of antiparasitic chemical agent, often natural product, naturally derived, that can be used to treat or to prevent malaria, in the latter case, most often aiming at two susceptible target ...
s pamaquine and
mepacrine Mepacrine, also called quinacrine or by the trade names Atabrine or Atebrin, is a medication with several uses. It is related to chloroquine and mefloquine. Although available from compounding pharmacies, as of August 2020 approved formulations ...
, with a great success. When the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. At the tim ...
started World War II in the Pacific, the US became much more interested in antimalarials and funded a large joint US-UK program to find new non-toxic and easy to produce drugs of the type, which was joined by the ICI team including Rose, Curd and two newly recruited scientists Garnet Davey and Alfred Spinks. Rose and Curd decided to concentrate on pyrimidines as relatively simple to synthetise, even though the Advisory Panel recommended against that because most antimalarials by then were either
quinoline Quinoline is a heterocyclic aromatic organic compound with the chemical formula C9H7N. It is a colorless hygroscopic liquid with a strong odor. Aged samples, especially if exposed to light, become yellow and later brown. Quinoline is only sl ...
s or acridines. Checking prospective 2,4-diaminopyridine derivatives with a basic side chain and a benzenoid moiety one after another, they noticed a geometric pattern in the effective analogs and wondered if they could reproduce their interesting biologic activity with molecules even simpler, without the pyrimidine ring, and tried
biguanide Biguanide () is the organic compound with the formula HN(C(NH)NH2)2. It is a colorless solid that dissolves in water to give a highly basic solution. These solutions slowly hydrolyse to ammonia and urea. Synthesis Biguanide can be obtained fro ...
s (then called diguanides) with which Rose was familiar due to his earlier sulphonamide research to great effect. As a result, in 1945 ICI introduced paludrine, and only much later it was found that an oxidative cyclization of this prodrug led to the active dihydrotriazine derivative cycloguanil (the mechanism of its work is still debated). He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
in 1957 when his candidacy citation read:
Distinguished for his researches in organic chemistry with particular reference to chemotherapy. As leader of the Medicinal Chemicals Section of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. (Dyestuffs Division) he, with his colleague, the late Dr. F.H.S. Curd, was responsible for the brilliant series of researches culminating in the discovery of the antimalarial drug paludrine, His contributions throughout have been marked by skill in experimentation and by the originality of his concepts of the relation between chemical structure and pharmacological action, concepts which have paved the way for his numerous successes in the field of chemotherapy, e.g. synthesis of paludrine, and of the trypanocide antrycide.
He won their Leverhulme Prize in 1975, and was made CBE in 1978. He was made an honorary DSc of Loughborough University in 1982.


Family

Frank Rose first met his future wife, Ailsa Buckley, when they were both in
Llandudno Llandudno (, ) is a seaside resort, town and community (Wales), community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. In the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 UK census, the community ...
in 1930. They married in Lincoln in 1935. Their first child, Anne, died soon after birth in 1937. Their son, Peter, born four years later, turned out to be a good organist, but chose to become a geographer. Later, though, he moved to St John's College School and again became involved in cathedral music. Francis Leslie Rose died in the town of his birth on 3 March 1988. His ashes are in the Garden of Remembrance at Macclesfield Crematorium. Ailsa died in 1999.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rose, Francis Leslie 1909 births 1988 deaths Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Society People from Lincoln, England