penicillin- when was it invented, who by and why was it so important?

Answer 1

Penicillin was accidentally discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, and it is one of the most useful antibiotics that has ever been discovered. It did not come into wide use though until WW2, when two men (Howard Florey and Ernst Chain) isolated the active ingredient and actually made it into a medicine.

Answer 2

Penicillin is attributed to the discovery of a Scottish scientist called Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928 at St Mary's Hospital. It was so important because it fought back against what are called Gram-positive bacteria and was extremely useful in Wars in the prevention of limb-loss due to infection.

Today it is still the most widely used antibiotic on the market.

Answer 3

The discovery of penicillin is usually attributed to Scottish scientist Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928, though others had earlier noted the antibacterial effects of Penicillium. Fleming, at his laboratory in St. Mary's Hospital (now one of Imperial College teaching hospitals) in London, noticed a halo of inhibition of bacterial growth around a contaminant blue-green mold on a Staphylococcus plate culture. Fleming concluded that the mold was releasing a substance that was inhibiting bacterial growth and lysing the bacteria. He grew a pure culture of the mold and discovered that it was a Penicillium mold, now known to be Penicillium notatum. Fleming coined the term "penicillin" to describe the filtrate of a broth culture of the Penicillium mold. Even in these early stages, penicillin was found to be most effective against Gram-positive bacteria, and ineffective against Gram-negative organisms and fungi. He expressed initial optimism that penicillin would be a useful disinfectant, being highly potent with minimal toxicity compared to antiseptics of the day, but particularly noted its laboratory value in the isolation of "Bacillus influenzae" (now Haemophilus influenzae).[1] After further experiments, Fleming was convinced that penicillin could not last long enough in the human body to kill pathogenic bacteria and stopped studying penicillin after 1931, but restarted some clinical trials in 1934 and continued to try to get someone to purify it until 1940.

Good Luck!

Answer 4

Penicillin is any one of a group of antibiotics derived from the fungus Penicillium or created by using partially artificial processes. The action of natural penicillin was first observed in 1928 by British bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming, but another ten years passed before penicillin was concentrated and studied by German-British biochemist Ernst Chain, Australian pathologist Sir Howard Florey, and other scientists.

Penicillin acts both by killing bacteria and by inhibiting their growth. It does not kill organisms in the resting stage but only those growing and reproducing. Penicillin is effective against a wide range of disease-bearing microorganisms, including pneumococci, streptococci, gonococci, meningococci, the clostridium that cause tetanus, and the syphilis spirochete. The drug has been successfully used to treat such deadly diseases as endocarditis, septicemia, gas gangrene, gonorrhea, and scarlet fever.

Answer 5

Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Andrew Moyer patented the first method of industrial production of penicillin in 1948.
First antibiotic to be used in the treatment of bacterial infections in humans.

Answer 6

1. The Biblical God is an ethnic cleanser. (OT anyone?) 2. Penicillin wasn't invented. It was discovered. 3. Jesus only saved people from "sin" which is a bizarre form of metaphysics which doesn't accurately reflect human suffering. I'm sorry! Online I get a bit sassy. I could remove the 2nd one if you'd like.

Answer 7

Sir Alexander Fleming. Studying mold. Petri dish got contaminated and he notive the mold (penicillium)mold attacked other mold. If memories serves me in 1920-1930's

Answer 8

Penicillin is one of the earliest discovered and widely used antibiotic agents, derived from the Penicillium mold. Antibiotics are natural substances that are released by bacteria and fungi into the their environment, as a means of inhibiting other organisms - it is chemical warfare on a microscopic scale.

Sir Alexander Fleming
Alexander Fleming
born August. 6, 1881 , Darvel, Scotland
died March 11, 1955 , London, England
In 1928, Sir Alexander Fleming observed that colonies of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus could be destroyed by the mold Penicillium notatum, proving that there was an antibacterial agent there in principle. This principle later lead to medicines that could kill certain types of disease-causing bacteria inside the body.
At the time, however, the importance of Alexander Fleming's discovery was not known. Use of penicillin did not begin until the 1940s when Howard Florey and Ernst Chain isolated the active ingredient and developed a powdery form of the medicine.


History of Penicillin
Originally noticed by a French medical student, Ernest Duchesne, in 1896. Penicillin was re-discovered by bacteriologist Alexander Fleming working at St. Mary's Hospital in London in 1928. He observed that a plate culture of Staphylococcus had been contaminated by a blue-green mold and that colonies of bacteria adjacent to the mold were being dissolved. Curious, Alexander Fleming grew the mold in a pure culture and found that it produced a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria. Naming the substance penicillin, Dr. Fleming in 1929 published the results of his investigations, noting that his discovery might have therapeutic value if it could be produced in quantity.

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Hodgkin used x-rays to find the structural layouts of atoms and the overall molecular shape of over 100 molecules including penicillin. Dorothy's discovery of the molecular layout of penicillin helped lead scientists to develop other antibiotics.

Dr. Howard Florey
It was not until 1939 that Dr. Howard Florey, a future Nobel Laureate, and three colleagues at Oxford University began intensive research and were able to demonstrate penicillin's ability to kill infectious bacteria. As the war with Germany continued to drain industrial and government resources, the British scientists could not produce the quantities of penicillin needed for clinical trials on humans and turned to the United States for help. They were quickly referred to the Peoria Lab where scientists were already working on fermentation methods to increase the growth rate of fungal cultures. One July 9, 1941, Howard Florey and Norman Heatley, Oxford University Scientists came to the U.S. with a small but valuable package containing a small amount of penicillin to begin work.
Pumping air into deep vats containing corn steep liquor (a non-alcoholic by-product of the wet milling process) and the addition of other key ingredients was shown to produce faster growth and larger amounts of penicillin than the previous surface-growth method. Ironically, after a worldwide search, it was a strain of penicillin from a moldy cantaloupe in a Peoria market that was found and improved to produce the largest amount of penicillin when grown in the deep vat, submerged conditions.


Andrew J. Moyer
By November 26, 1941, Andrew J. Moyer, the lab's expert on the nutrition of molds, had succeeded, with the assistance of Dr. Heatley, in increasing the yields of penicillin 10 times. In 1943, the required clinical trials were performed and penicillin was shown to be the most effective antibacterial agent to date. Penicillin production was quickly scaled up and available in quantity to treat Allied soldiers wounded on D-Day. As production was increased, the price dropped from nearly priceless in 1940, to $20 per dose in July 1943, to $0.55 per dose by 1946.
As a result of their work, two members of the British group were awarded the Nobel Prize. Dr. Andrew J. Moyer from the Peoria Lab was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame and both the British and Peoria Laboratories were designated as International Historic Chemical Landmarks.


Andrew J Moyer Patent
On May 25, 1948, Andrew J Moyer was granted a patent for a method of the mass production of penicillin.

Resistance to Penicillin
Four years after drug companies began mass-producing penicillin in 1943, microbes began appearing that could resist it.
The first bug to battle penicillin was Staphylococcus aureus. This bacterium is often a harmless passenger in the human body, but it can cause illness, such as pneumonia or toxic shock syndrome, when it overgrows or produces a toxin.

Answer 9

Alexander Flemming, it's importance is in the fact of it's power as an antibiotic.

Answer 10

Search "Alexander Fleming" and you will find more than you need to know.