Alexander Fleming

Lived 1881 – 1955.

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, whose use as an antibiotic has saved untold millions of lives.
Less well-known is that before making this world-changing discovery, he had already made significant
life-saving contributions to medical science.
Beginnings
Alexander Fleming was born on August 6, 1881 at his parents’ farm located near the small town of
Darvel, in Scotland, UK.
His parents, Hugh Fleming and Grace Stirling Morton, were both from farming families. His father’s
health was fragile; he died when Alexander was just seven years old.
Alexander’s earliest schooling, between the ages of five and eight, was at a tiny moorland school where
12 pupils of all ages were taught in a single classroom.
Darvel School was Alexander’s next school, which involved an eight-mile round trip on foot every
school-day. At the age of 11 his academic potential was recognized and he was awarded a scholarship
to Kilmarnock Academy, where he boarded for about two years before leaving for London.
Alexander arrived in London early in 1895, age 13. This was the year his fellow Scot, Arthur Conan
Doyle, published The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, in which readers were horrified to learn their
hero had died falling into the Reichenbach Falls.
Alexander lived in the home of his elder brother, Tom, who was a doctor of medicine. Most of the
Fleming family ended up living with Tom, leaving the eldest brother, Hugh, running the farm.
Alexander attended the Polytechnic School, where he studied business and commerce. He started in a
class appropriate to his age, but his teachers soon realized he needed more challenging work. He was
moved into a class with boys two years older than him and finished school at the age of 16.
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Work and Medical School

Alexander’s business training helped him get a job in a shipping office, but he did not enjoy working
there.
In 1901, at the age of 20, he inherited some money from his uncle, John Fleming. He decided to use the
money to go to medical school; he wanted to become a doctor like his successful brother Tom.
First, he needed suitable qualifications to enable him to enroll at medical school. This did not present
any great difficulties; he passed his exams with the highest marks of any student in the United
Kingdom.
In 1903, age 22, Alexander enrolled at London’s St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, graduating with
distinction three years later as Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.
Rather than follow in Tom’s footsteps, Alexander was persuaded by Almroth Wright, an authority in
immunology, to become a researcher in his bacteriology group at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School.
While carrying out this research Fleming graduated, in 1908, with a degree in bacteriology and the
Gold Medal for top student. St Mary’s Hospital Medical School then promoted him to the role of
bacteriology lecturer.
Almroth Wright was interested in our bodies’ natural ability to fight infection. Fleming became
particularly fascinated by the fact that although people suffer bacterial infections from time to time, our
natural defenses usually prevent infections from taking hold.
Fleming’s Most Significant Contributions to Science
Proving that Antiseptics Kill rather than Cure
In 1914 World War 1 broke out and Fleming, age 33, joined the army, becoming a captain in the Royal
Army Medical Corps working in field hospitals in France.
There, in a series of brilliant experiments, he established that antiseptic agents used to treat wounds and
prevent infection were actually killing more soldiers than the infections were!
The antiseptics, such as carbolic acid, boric acid and hydrogen peroxide, were failing to kill bacteria
deep in wounds; worse, they were in fact lowering the soldier’s natural resistance to infection because
they were killing white blood cells.
Fleming demonstrated that antiseptic agents were only useful in treating superficial wounds, but were
harmful when applied to deep wounds.
Almroth Wright believed that a saline solution – salt water – should be used to clean deep wounds,
because this did not interfere with the body’s own defenses and in fact attracted white cells. Fleming
proved this result in the field.
Wright and Fleming published their results, but most army doctors refused to change their ways,
resulting in many preventable deaths.
Discovery of Penicillin
In the month of August 1928, Fleming did something very important. He enjoyed a long vacation with
his wife and young son.
On Monday, September 3, he returned to his laboratory and saw a pile of Petri dishes he had left on his
bench. The dishes contained colonies of Staphylococcusbacteria. While he was away, one of his
assistants had left a window open and the dishes had become contaminated by different microbes.
Annoyed, Fleming looked through the dishes and found something remarkable had taken place in one
of them.
A fungus was growing and the bacterial colonies around it had been killed. Farther from the fungus, the
bacteria looked normal. Excited by his observation, Fleming showed the dish to an assistant, who
remarked on how similar this seemed to Fleming’s famous discovery of lysozyme.
Hoping he had discovered a better natural antibiotic than lysozyme, Fleming now devoted himself to
growing more of the fungus. He identified that it belonged to the Penicillium genus and that it produced
a bacteria-killing liquid. On March 7, 1929 he formally named the antibiotic penicillin.
Fleming published his results, showing that penicillin killed many different species of bacteria,
including those responsible for scarlet fever, pneumonia, meningitis, and diphtheria. Furthermore,
penicillin was non-toxic and it did not attack white blood cells.
Unfortunately, the scientific world was largely underwhelmed, ignoring his discovery.
Fleming faced a number of problems:
it was difficult to isolate penicillin from the fungus producing it
he could not find a way of producing penicillin in high concentrations
penicillin seemed to be slow acting
clinical tests of penicillin as a surface antiseptic showed it was not especially effective
Fleming’s boss, Almroth Wright, had a generalized dislike of chemists and refused to allow them in his
laboratory. The presence of a skilled chemist would have been a huge benefit in terms of isolating,
purifying, and concentrating penicillin.
Regardless of these issues, Fleming continued with some work on penicillin in the 1930s, but never
made the breakthrough he needed to produce it in large, concentrated quantities. Others, however, did.
In the early 1940s a team of scientists led by pathologist Howard Florey and biochemist Ernst Boris
Chain at the University of Oxford transformed penicillin into the medicine we know today.
M. S. Swaminathan
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M. S. Swaminathan

Swaminathan at the 100th Indian Science Congress

Born 7 August 1925 (age 93)

Kumbakonam
Madras Presidency

Residence Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Alma mater H H M University College

Thiruvananthapuram
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Known for High-yielding varieties of wheat in India

Spouse(s) Mina Swaminathan

Children Soumya Swaminathan

Awards Padma Shri (1967)

Ramon Magsaysay (1971)
Padma Bhushan (1972)
 Albert Einstein World Award of
Science (1986)
Padma Vibhushan (1989)
World Food Prize (1987)
Tyler Prize for Environmental
Achievement (1991)
Volvo Environment Prize (1999)
Indira Gandhi Peace Prize(1999)
Indira Gandhi Award for National
Integration (2013)

Scientific career

Institutions MS Swaminathan Research Foundation

Influences Dr. Norman Borlaug

Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (born 7 August 1925) is an Indian geneticist and international

administrator.

Contents

 1Career
 2Honors
 3References
 4Other websites

Career[change | change source]
He is known for his leading role in India's Green Revolution a program under which high-yield varieties of
wheat and rice seedlings were planted in the fields of poor farmers. Swaminathan is also known as "Indian
Father of Green Revolution" for his leadership and success in creating and further developing varieties of
wheat in India. He is the founder and chairman of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation.[1]
From 1972 to 1979 he was director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He was Principal
Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture from 1979 to 1980. He served as Director General of the International
Rice Research Institute(1982–88) and became president of the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature and Natural Resources in 1988.

Honors[change | change source]
In 1999, Time magazine placed him in the 'Time 20' list of most influential Asian people of the 20th century.
[2]