Peter Landers, MS Drug's Epic Journey From Folklore to Lab;
Research Into Ancient Chinese Fungus That Propagates Inside Insects Yields Potential Relief for Multiple Sclerosis. Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2010.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704256304575320714138159240.html
Note:
(a) Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid chemically.
A French chemist, Charles Frederic Gerhardt, was the first to prepare acetylsalicylic acid in 1853, by mixing
(i) acetyl chloride with
(ii) a sodium salt of salicylic acid (sodium salicylate).
By 1899, Bayer had dubbed this drug Aspirin, whose name is derived from acetyl and "spirsäure" = an old (German) name for salicylic acid.
Aspirin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin
* Salicylic acid 水楊酸is isolated--from bark of white willow, Salix alba--and named by the German chemist Johann Andreas Buchner in 1826.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salicylic_acid
Please take notice structural differences (at the upper right corners of respective web pages) where Aspirin is essentially an ester 酯 of salicylic acid (with acetyl radical).
(b) Tetsuro FUJITA 藤多 哲朗
(c) Isolated from fungus Tolypocladium inflatum/Beauveria nivea/Cordyceps subsessilis,* Cyclosporin (or ciclosporin) is a cyclic peptide of 11 amino acids 氨基酸. Its immuno-suppressive effect was discovered in 1972 by employees of Sandoz (now Novartis) in Basel, Switzerland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciclosporin
The mechanism of action of Cyclosporin is unknown.
Professor Fuijita had nothing to do with its discovery.
* Different names of the same species are due to confusion caused by various states of the same species.
(d) Isaria sinclairii looks different from Cordyceps sinensis.
Kathie Hodge and Jon Palmer, Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for June 2006.
http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/jun2006.html
(The first fungus is Tolypocladium inflatum and the second, Isaria sinclairii--with cicada carcass at the bottom)