Okay, I know that it surfaced for treatment in the 1940s and it's fungal in origin. I know that at first, they didn't have enough to treat anyone and they had to create large amounts of it. How is it made into medicine from fungus though? Is something extracted or is it ground up?
2006-09-13 02:13:45 · 5 answers · asked by ubiquitousmee 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Medicine
Penicillin is a filtrate of a cultured broth. So you make a "soup" of the fungus, and then drain out the fluid.
2006-09-13 02:17:38 · answer #1 · answered by DavidK93 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
first they have to grow fungus (streptomycces) until fungus gets to stationary phase (phase where they stop growing , that happens when nutrients start to run out). Then streptomyces start to make penicillin.
From there they probably centrifuge streptomyces culture and take the supernatent (liquidy part) and extract penicillin by adding more chemical agent and more centrifugation. Then they purify penicillin.
2006-09-16 16:53:57 · answer #2 · answered by chanseypokemon 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Huge fermentation vats (great big containers) filled with liquid and nutrients necessary for molds to grow are used to grow large amounts of Penicillium chrysogenum ( one of the species of Penicillium which can be grown in stirred fermenters - for large-scale production).
Once the penicillin is released from the fungal cells, the compound is isolated from the fermenter's contents and purified by special biochemical processes. Such commercial production results in more than 100,000,000 pounds of penicillin production per year!
2006-09-15 21:10:06 · answer #3 · answered by ♥ lani s 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
initially it was obtained from a culture of Penicilium
notatum, years later it was produced by synthesis and the product was called Ampicillin
2006-09-13 05:18:51 · answer #4 · answered by opaalvarez 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it is extracted...
the brits found it out , but the americans figured out how to make it in large quantities....
2006-09-13 03:18:13 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋