In 1965, aspartame was discovered accidentally. Aspartame is made by joining two protein components, aspartic acid and phenylalanine and a small amount of methanol.
It was discovered by an organic chemist, James M. Schlatter working for G. D Searle & Company when he was testing new drugs for gastric ulcers and licked his fingers before picking up a piece of paper.
Initially he thought the taste was from sugar on a doughnut he had eaten that morning but then he realized he had washed his hands since eating the doughnut.
Aspartame tuned out not to be a good ulcer drug, but it has become a well received sweetener.
This discovery led to further work demonstrating the sweetness of number of various pipettes and amino acid derivatives.
Aspartame is marketed under the brand names NutraSweet and Equal. It was the third artificial sweetener indentified to achieve acceptance in the general market.
Eventually the compound was proved to be better tasting than many of the alternatives on the market, and it was safe thought that it would have an excellent chance of surviving rigorous toxicity testing.
History of Aspartame
