The development of penicillin in 1940’s brought epoch-making
progress in chemotherapy, following the discovery and development of useful
antibiotics like streptomycin (1944), chloramphenicol
(1947), chlortetracycline (1948), and erythromycin (1952), and stimulated
discovery research on new antibiotics from Actinomycetes.
For
the research of new antibiotics we needed to ignore known antibiotics at the
early stage of the screening, but data book for the identification of known
antibiotics was very limited. Dr. Keiichi Takeda (Nippon Kayaku Co., Ltd. at
that time), Dr. Yoshiro Okami (National Institute of
Health, Japan) and Dr. Shinichi Kondo had collected, independently,
characteristic data of known antibiotics, and then they were joined by
additional members, Dr. Keiji Ida (Meiji Seika
Kaisha, Ltd.), Dr. Kenji Maeda (National Institute of Health, Japan) and Dr. Tomoharu Okuda (Tanabe Seiyaku Co., Ltd.). After about 10
year’s work, a data book was published by the
The book embodied physico-chemical
and biochemical properties of 1,200 compounds, which were shown page by page,
respectively. The book was called “The Umezawa Index”, since Prof. Hamao Umezawa was
Editor-in-Chief. The book has index tables, employed by an excellent idea of Dr.
Takeda, to show UV maximum, molecular formula, elemental analysis, acute
toxicity and producing organism of compounds, respectively. The book became a
valuable tool for discovery of new antibiotics in the era prior to personal
computer. To publish the book proof reading was very laborious to confirm the
data. And all IR data were hand drawn from eliminating the copyright matter.
After the first edition there were many
difficulties in updating the data continuously. Fortunately, with joint efforts
of new editors and computer technicians, Vol. 2 was published in 1978 with the
addition of 1,400 new compounds. Vol. 2 was edited by computers of Shionogi
& Co., Ltd. and Sankyo Co., Ltd. and with photocopy printing and thus the
proof reading was very easy. The edition was epochal at that time in
By an idea of Dr. Yukimasa
Yagisawa (Japan Antibiotics Research Association),
further retrieved data of new antibiotics after Vol. 2 were appeared on Supplement
of the Journal of Antibiotics (
Drs. Takeda and Okuda had continued to collect
further new data for a long time, and completed a database on biologically
active microbial products by computer assist. The database was published as
ACTFUND FOR WINDOWS 95 and distributed through Technomics
Co. by 2001.
Recently, by an idea of Dr. Yasuo
Fukagawa, the data of ACTFUND FOR WINDOWS 95 was
remodeled to a new and more valuable database program, UMEZAWA DB with Access
2000, Microsoft Office 2000.
The database has been improved and the new
edition, UMEZAWA DB 2002 will be distributed through our web site in April 2002
in cooperation with the Open Technologies Corporation. Separately, the database
will be also available on CD-ROM.
All of the distribution news will be announced
on this web site.
Shinichi Kondo, Ph.D
August
2002