Ehrlich became interested in the selectivity of dyes for specific organs, tissues, and cells, and he continued his investigations at the Charité Hospital in Berlin.

In Breslau he worked in the laboratory of his cousin Carl Weigert, a pathologist who pioneered the use of aniline dyes as biological stains. He studied to become a medical doctor at the university there and in Strasbourg, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Leipzig. He called these substances “magic bullets.” Ehrlich himself met with signal successes in the emerging fields of serum antitoxins and chemotherapy.Įhrlich was born near Breslau-then in Germany, but now known as Wrocław, Poland. In 1906 Ehrlich prophesied the role of modern-day pharmaceutical research, predicting that chemists in their laboratories would soon be able to produce substances that would seek out specific disease-causing agents. Ehrlich received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1908. German biochemist Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915) developed a chemical theory to explain the body’s immune response and did important work in chemotherapy, coining the term magic bullet.

Red magic bullet