Penicillins Flemings Serendipitous Discovery

The story of the discovery of penicillins has been related on many occasions and in many forms, and the superb biography of Alexander Fleming by Gwyn MacFarlane gives by far the best account of his life and discoveries. It is, however, worth repeating the most salient features of the story, because it provides an excellent example of what Pasteur had earlier described as chance favours only the prepared mind [He hasard ne favorise que les esprits prepares ]. 

During the next eight years, Fleming learnt much about the techniques of vaccine preparation and of bacteriology, and even produced his own vaccine against the bacterium Corynebacterium acnes, which is usually involved in facial acne. His promising therapeutic results were described in a paper for the Lancet (1909), and his involvement with the clinical trials of Salvarsan 

These alarming deficiencies in therapy for bacterial infections undoubtedly influenced Fleming in his choice of research area when he returned to St Mary s in January 1919. It is unclear as to how he discovered that nasal mucus had antibacterial properties but this line of investigation led to more important work with other body secretions and, in particular, with tears. The so-called tear antiseptic was obtained from volunteers who had lemon juice instilled into their eyes, and proved to be reasonably potent. This same antibacterial agent was subsequently (in January 1922) shown to be present in egg white and this became the primary source of what was eventually christened lysozyme. In his first paper on lysozyme (in Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1922, B, vol. 93, 306), Fleming reported that about three-quarters of the airborne bacteria he had 

Cartoon from Punch (1922) by J.H. Dowd depicting the collection of tear antiseptic . In reality, the boys had lemon juice instilled into their eyes, and the resultant tears were collected for extraction of lysozyme 

His collaborators and others at St Mary s initially seemed unimpressed by this plate, since similar plates had been seen when lysozyme was employed but what seems to have excited Fleming was the fact that the culture plate had been inoculated with a virulent strain of staphylococcus. This implied that the mould was producing an agent or agents that were effective against a potentially very pathogenic organism. 

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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. 

The serendipitous discovery of penicillin in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, while researching agents that could be used to combat... 

It is now over 60 years since the serendipitous discovery of penicillin by Fleming [1], and approximately 50 years since its chemotherapeutic potential was first recognised by Florey and co-workers [2] at Oxford. Since the end of World War II, the great commercial and academic interest in y3-lactam antibiotics has led to a wide array of antibacterial agents of immense chemotherapeutic value. 

Microorganisms have been used as sources of bioactive natural products ever since the serendipitous discovery of penicillin by Fleming in 1929 (Fig. 1.4). To date, microorganisms have been the richest source of active pharmaceutical... 

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