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Alexander Fleming

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 after noticing a fungus had contaminated a culture plate and inhibited bacterial growth, though he failed to purify it. During World War II, a team led by Howard Florey successfully isolated and purified penicillin, allowing its clinical use. Fleming, Florey, and Ernst Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work developing penicillin.

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Alexander Fleming

Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 after noticing a fungus had contaminated a culture plate and inhibited bacterial growth, though he failed to purify it. During World War II, a team led by Howard Florey successfully isolated and purified penicillin, allowing its clinical use. Fleming, Florey, and Ernst Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work developing penicillin.

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Alexander Fleming, in full 

Sir Alexander Fleming, (born August 6, 1881,


Ayrshire, Scotland—died March 11, 1955, London, England),
Scottish bacteriologist best known for his discovery of penicillin. Fleming had
a genius for technical ingenuity and original observation. His work
on wound infection and lysozyme, an antibacterial enzyme found in tears and
saliva, guaranteed him a place in the history of bacteriology. But it was his
discovery of penicillin in 1928, which started the antibiotic revolution, that
sealed his lasting reputation. Fleming was recognized for that achievement in
1945, when he received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with
Australian pathologist Howard Walter Florey and German-born British
biochemist Ernst Boris Chain, both of whom isolated and purified penicillin.
On September 3, 1928, shortly after his appointment as professor of
bacteriology, Fleming noticed that a culture plate of Staphylococcus aureus he
had been working on had become contaminated by a fungus. A mold, later
identified as Penicillium notatum, had inhibited the growth of the bacteria. He
at first called the substance “mould juice” and then “penicillin,” after the mold
that produced it. In fact, it was not an enzyme but an antibiotic—one of the
first to be discovered. The therapeutic development of penicillin required
multidisciplinary teamwork. Fleming, working with two young researchers,
Sir Ernst Boris Chain, failed to stabilize and purify penicillin. However, he
did point out that penicillin had clinical potential, both as a topical antiseptic
and as an injectable antibiotic, if it could be isolated and purified.

Penicillin eventually came into use during World War II as the result of the
work of a team of scientists led by Howard Florey at the University of Oxford.
Though Florey, his coworker Ernst Chain, and Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel
Prize, their relationship was clouded by the issue of who should gain the most
credit for penicillin.

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