The Discover and Research of Penicillin

The Discovery and Research of Penicillin Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin while examining a stray mold in his London laboratory in 1928, and its eventual development by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain at Oxford University, created a major break through to another world of antibiotics and medicine. Antibiotics like penicillin have become the most important family of drugs of this era. During the 1940’s (World War 2) penicillin became a life saving drug to thousands of soldier’s, it also defeated a major bacterial scourges such as blood poisoning and pneumonia, scarlet fever and diphtheria. And accidentally helped advance a sexual revolution as well as a medical revolution. The story of how the mold’s active ingredients were isolated and transformed into the world’s first wonder drug isn’t known to a full extent, and the credit of penicillin development is largely misplaced; from Fleming discovery and Florey and Chains further research and help. The development of penicillin was the last of four advances in 150 years to deal effectively with infection. Unlike the other three, whose lifesaving abilities were known at the beginning, the usefulness of the penicillin mold could not be committed until Florey’s team performed it’s own laboratory accomplishments. Although Florey never made a profit from their research, Fleming, Florey, and Chain did share a Nobel Prize. At time of this discovery, no British pharmaceutical companies could comprehend the future potential of this drug when first presented to the medical and scientific community. Unlike the American labs, scientists Merck, Abbot, and Pfizer received royalties from the manufacturing, while the final development and accomplishment of penicillin took over 12 years, it became the birth of the some of the largest drug companies and the shift in eras from medicine. Penicillin launched the awakening of the antibiotic age; prior to its commencement there was

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