A failed bacteria experiment led to a 95 percent cure

In 1965 he noticed the bacteria stopped dividing near platinum electrodes in the solution. The current itself was not the cause. A corrosion product of the platinum was, and it was later named cisplatin.

Physicians at Indiana University tested the compound in young men with metastatic testicular cancer, a disease that killed most patients within a year. Lawrence Einhorn combined cisplatin with vinblastine and bleomycin, and complete remission rates jumped from under 10 percent to more than 70 percent in the first trial.

Dosing was refined through the late 1970s to cut toxicity without losing effect, and testicular cancer, once a near certain death sentence for young men, became one of oncology's most curable solid tumors, with cure rates now cited above 90 percent when caught early. The same platinum chemistry still anchors regimens for ovarian, lung, and head and neck cancers today.

A corroded platinum wire built a cure.