Fish Pharm

Strange that the cover of the summer 2017 Bulletin should link fish and curiosity. My curiosity about fish was a major reason for leaving Swarthmore after two years. In the 1950s, biology at Swarthmore was largely cellular, and not a fit for my interest in fish and wildlife.

I went on to a Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire in zoology (salmon physiology) and started a salmon farm in Maine. My company, Sea Run Holdings Inc., produces reagents and therapeutics from the plasma of farmed salmon. Salmon fibrinogen has healed intestinal fistulas in Crohn’s patients; in animals, salmon thrombin is as effective as morphine for pain; and salmon fibrin promotes functional recovery after spinal cord injury. The fish are our natural expression system free from mammal pathogens.

Come on, S’more students: What else can they do?

—EVELYN SNODGRASS SAWYER ’58, Freeport, Maine