Zrinka Tamburašev was a Croatian scientist known for her work in the development of antibiotics such as oxytetracycline and azithromycin.
Early life Tamburašev was born in Sisak, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in 1921. She graduated in 1948 from the Chemical-Technological Department of the Technical Faculty in Zagreb and earned her doctorate in 1965.
Career She joined the research institute of the pharmaceutical company PLIVA in 1957, where she made several discoveries and patents in departments of microbiology, biochemistry, and biotechnology. While at PLIVA she led the group for semisynthetic macrolides from 1972 to 1974, and in 1974 she was named the head of the natural products department. In the mid-1960s, she worked with Slobodan Đokić on erythromycin A derivatives and on sulfonamide derivatives of erythromycylamine, with the idea of combining the properties of erythromycin and sulfonamides. She began work on the synthesis of individual phases for the preparation of azithromycin, and the results of this research challenged the previous understanding of the macrocyclic ring of erythromycin as the bearer of the antibacterial activity of macrolides. In 1974 her collaboration with Slobodan Đokić, Gabrijela Kobrehel, and Gorjana Lazarevski led to the development of azithromycin, an erythromycin derivative later established in the American market as Zithromax. She devised a method for isolating the antibiotic oxytetracycline in its industrial production and dealt with the chemical transformations of tetracycline order antibiotics and erythromycin. She is a co-author of patents that protected the preparation of oximes of erythromycin A and erythromycylamine, important intermediates in the synthesis of second-generation macrolide antibiotics (azithromycin, clarithromycin, roxithromycin, and dirithromycin). Tamburašev died on April 24, 2003, in Zagreb, Croatia, at the age of 82.
Selected publications Djokić, Slobodan; Tamburašev, Zrinka (1967-01-01). "Erythromycin study: 9-Amino-3-0-cladinosyl-5-0-desosaminyl-6,11,12- tryhydroxy-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexamethylpentadecane-13-olide". Tetrahedron Letters. 8 (17): 1645–1647. doi:10.1016/S0040-4039(00)70331-5. ISSN 0040-4039. PMID 6047192. Djokić, Slobodan; Tamburašev, Zrinka (1967-01-01). "Erythromycin study: 9-Amino-3-0-cladinosyl-5-0-desosaminyl-6,11,12- tryhydroxy-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexamethylpentadecane-13-olide". Tetrahedron Letters. 8 (17): 1645–1647. doi:10.1016/S0040-4039(00)70331-5. ISSN 0040-4039. PMID 6047192. Kobrehel, Gabrijela; Tamburašev, Zrinka; Djokić, Slobodan (1977-03-21). "Erythromycin series: IV. Thin-layer chromatography of erythromycin, erythromycin oxime, erythromycylamine and their acyl derivatives". Journal of Chromatography A. 133 (2): 415–419. doi:10.1016/S0021-9673(00)83508-6. ISSN 0021-9673. PMID 838822. Lazarevski, Tomislav; Tamburas̈ev, Zrinka; Djokić, Slobodan (1977-02-11). "Erythromycin series: V. Quantitative analysis of cladinose and methylcladinoside by densitometry of thin-layer chromatograms". Journal of Chromatography A. 132 (2): 309–313. doi:10.1016/S0021-9673(00)89305-X. ISSN 0021-9673. PMID 833239. Djokić, Slobodan; Kobrehel, Gabrijela; Lazarevski, Gorjana; Lopotar, Nevenka; Tamburašev, Zrinka; Kamenar, Boris; Nagl, Ante; Vicković, Ivan (1986-01-01). "Erythromycin series. Part 11. Ring expansion of erythromycin A oxime by the Beckmann rearrangement". Journal of the Chemical Society, Perkin Transactions 1: 1881–1890. doi:10.1039/P19860001881. ISSN 1364-5463.
Honors and awards Following the discovery of azithromycin, she became the recipient of the City of Zagreb Award for 1959, the PLIVA Award for 1996, and the Croatian Chamber of Economy's Golden Marten Award for Lifetime Achievement for 1998. In 1998 she also received the Nagrade HAZU-a.
Patents Zrinka Tamburasev has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
References
External links Biography of Tamburasev on the Croatian Technical Encyclope