What do you get when you combine Staphylococcus aureus and Scandinavian scientists? Protein A.
No, this isn’t a story about anyone getting a staph infection. Instead, it’s the story about how in 1958, Danish scientist Clas Jenssen mistook the molecule protein A as a polysaccharide, then named Fraction A. Four years later, the Norwegian team of Löfquist and Sjöquist took a closer look, ultimately leading them to change the name to Protein A, because it was found in Fraction A of the Staphylococcus aureus extracts. And that’s pretty A-mazing.