Dr Howard Schaeffer in conversation with Dr Peter Williams.

Interview with Dr Howard Schaeffer, successful medicinal chemist (who developed zovirax and other anti-viral and anti-cancer agents). Schaeffer explains that he studied chemistry because there is a kind of art to it, and a joy in finding answers. He talks about his student work and his very productive time as Head of Dept of Medicinal Chemistry at Buffalo University. He explains his natural progression into studying anti-cancer and anti-viral agents. How and why he was recruited by Wellcome labs. How his team found anti-viral compounds and the difficulty of getting FDA approval for them. He then discusses what made the Wellcome laboratories special, and possible reasons why the US Wellcome labs were more successful than the UK ones.