Compound Inhibits Clotting Warfarin interferes with blood
coagulation and the bacteria that causes TB What do Wisconsin
dairy cattle, rat poison, and former President Dwight Eisenhower
have in common? The answer is warfarin, the most prescribed
anticoagulant in North America that unites these seemingly
disparate phenomenon with two vastly different medical issues:
anticoagulation and tuberculosis. In the laboratory of Jonathan
Beckwith, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at
Harvard Medical School, a team of researchers have discovered
that warfarin—a compound found in blood thinners—interferes with
not only the process of blood coagulation, but also the growth
of the bacteria molecule that causes tuberculosis. The discovery
has profound consequences for the future of new anticoagulants
and tuberculosis antibiotics, the researchers said. Warfarin was
first discovered during the Great Depression when dairy cattle
on a Wisconsin farm suffered excessive bleeding from consuming
spoiled sweet red cl