How did you come up with the idea for protein PEGylation?
Abuchowski: My thesis advisor, Dr. Frank Davis, long believed that chemical conjugation of polymers to proteins may help alleviate some of the deleterious and potentially life-threatening side effects commonly associated with nonhuman proteins like insulin (isolated from animal sources) that were routinely used in the 1970s. Frank reasoned that the addition of an inert polymer to a protein might dampen host immune responses and reduce the side effects following the parenteral administration of nonhuman proteins. Because this was Frank’s pet project, he required all graduate students who wanted to work with him to “take a crack at protein conjugation.” Despite knowing that many graduated students had failed before me, I enthusiastically agreed to work on the protein conjugation project — I was young, brash, and naively overconfident at the time! While there were many potential conjugation candidates to choose from, Frank decided on PEG mostly because it was a ubiquitous substance found
