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That long and winding road began with the antibiotic iproniazid.

Iproniazid transformed the treatment of tuberculosis in the 1950s.

The first, called iproniazid, was found by accident when it was being tested as a treatment for tuberculosis.

Several classes of antidepressants owe their discovery to chance, from iproniazid which was initially used to treat tuberculosis in the 1950s, to the tricyclics of the 1960s which stemmed from an experimental treatment for schizophrenia and the more recent breakthrough involving the use of ketamine.

Today's antidepressants all descend from serendipitous observations in human trials of two molecules more than 50 years ago: imipramine, synthesized as a potential antipsychotic drug, and iproniazid, designed to treat tuberculosis.