Fleming, Sir Alexander

Fleming, Sir Alexander (1881-1955). Discovered penicillin (1928) initiated antibiotics. Nobel Prize 1945. The science was developed in the U.S. by Selman A. Waksman. 

Fleming, Sir Alexander (1881-1955) British bacteriologist, born in Scotland. He studied medicine at St Mary s Hospital, London, where he remained all his life. In 1922 he identified lysozyme, an enzyme that destroys bacteria, and in 1928 discovered the antibiotic penicillin. He shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with Florey and "Chain, who first isolated the drug. 

The discoverer of penicillin Sir Alexander Fleming has appeared on two stamps This 1981 Hungarian issue includes both a likeness of Fleming and a structural for mula for penicillin... 

The phenomenon of bacterial resistance to antibiotics was already known by the pioneers of the era of antibiotics, like Paul Ehrlich, who coined the term selective toxicity as the basic principle of antimicrobial therapeutics, as well as Gerhard Domagk, the inventor of the sulfonamide drugs, and Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of the penicillins. When penicillin G was introduced into clinical practice in 1944, as many as 5% of the isolates of Staphylococcus aureus were resistant to penicillin, while 5 years later the percentage was 50%. 

South Kensington Campus, Sir Alexander Fleming Building, Room 355... 

Plants remained essentially the sole source of natural product drugs until well into the 20th century. Then in 1928 the discovery of penicillin hy the Scottish bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) opened an entirely new area of research in the held of... 

Sir Alexander Fleming first noted the ability of the mould P. notatum to produce an antibiotic substance (which he called penicillin) in 1928. However, he also noted that when penicillin was added to blood in vitro, it lost most of its antibiotic action, and Fleming consequently lost interest in his discovery. In the late 1930s, Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley began to work on penicillin. They purified it and, unlike Fleming, studied its effect on live animals. They found that administration of penicillin to mice after their injection with lethal doses of streptococci protected the mice from an otherwise certain death. 

The penicillins (or penams) were discovered in 1929 by Sir Alexander Fleming, and developed by Florey, Chain, and Abraham at Oxford University. The history of penicillin became a story of legendary proportions, illustrating the case of a serendipitous discovery combined with brilliant development it also marks the beginning of the modern chemotherapy of infectious diseases. 

In 1928, Sir Alexander Fleming found that a diffusible substance was elaborated by Penicillium notatum (a fungus) which prevented the growth of surrounding bacterial colonies in culture plate. He named this as penicillin but this discovery remained a scientific curiosity for more than a decade. This work was followed up by Chain, Falk and Florey who established the efficacy of penicillin in 1941 and in 1945, Fleming, Chain and Florey were awarded the Nobel Prize. 

S.J. Borghoff, CUT, PO Box 12137, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, United States J. Caldwell, Division of Biomedical Sciences, Imperial College School of Medicine, Sir Alexander Fleming Building, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom... 

The discovery of penicillin by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1929 has been recognized as one of the most fortunate discoveries in modem times [1], The (3-lactam ring is the key component of commonly used antibiotics such as penicillins, cephalosporins, carbapenems, and monobactams [2], The development of (3-lactam antibiotics... 

Scottish bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming, corecipient, with Ernst Boris Chain and Sir Howard Walter Florey, of the 1945 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases. ... 

Sir Alexander Fleming—Biography. Available from . 

Have the petri dish contaminated by a mold that kills bacteria (Sir Alexander Fleming, 1929),... 

Maurois, A. (1959). The Life of Sir Alexander Fleming (G. Hopkins, trans.). Cape, London, and Dutton, New York. 

Penicillins are a group of stmcturally related antibiotics, known since the pioneering woik of Sir Alexander Fleming led to the discovery of penicillin G in the 1920s. All penicillins contain a strained P-lactam fused to a five-membered ring, as well as a second amide located a to the P-lactam carbonyl group. Particular penicillins differ in the identity of the R group in the amide side chain. 

Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by Scottish bacteriologist Sir Alexander Fleming, who noticed that a mold of the genus Penicillium inhibited the growth of certain bacteria. 

---