Health and Medicine | Who Discovered Penicillin?
Who discovered penicillin?
The bacteria-killing property of penicillin was discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), a British bacteriologist (scientist who studies bacteria), in 1928. Fleming noticed that no bacteria grew around bits of the Penicillium notatum fungus that accidentally fell into a bacterial culture in his laboratory. The medical use of penicillin began shortly thereafter. However, it was not until 1941 that Howard Florey (1898-1968) purified and tested penicillin.
The first large-scale penicillin-production plant was constructed under the direction of Ernest Chain (1906-1979). In 1945, the year that penicillin became commercially available, the Nobel Prize was awarded jointly to Chain, Florey, and Fleming for their work on penicillin.
Today penicillin is still used successfully in the treatment of many bacterial diseases, including pneumonia, strep throat, scarlet fever,...
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