Page 4 - ScienceFocus_issue13_300dpi_flipbook

Alexander Fleming is

a household name synonymous
to the discoverer of Penicillin,
one of the most widely used
antibiotic agents that has
saved countless people.
Nevertheless, unbeknownst
to many people is that many
other scientists, with the
key ones being Howard Florey,
Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley, also
made significant contributions towards
the success of the discovery and
production of penicillin.

It all started in September 1928,

when Fleming left his laboratory

for a few days without cleaning

up the plates on which he grew

some samples of bacteria. Upon Penicillin:
his return, he noticed a mold
growing on one of the plates.
However, there was a ring
free of bacteria surrounding

it. He postulated that the Beyond Fleming
mold ??which he then found
to be Penicillium notatum ??might contain a substance

that killed bacteria, and

named the substance

penicillin. However, P. notatum ?文側镼踵?
was difficult to grow, and
introducing it to the human
body orally proved to be

ineffective. The idea of mass-

producing penicillin as an ??敺??antibiotic seemed too difficult
and expensive to achieve.

Now that Fleming has

provided the scientific community

with the first clue in solving the

puzzle of antibiotic extraction and

production, further problems had

to be solved by other scientists. In By Chantelle Sullivan ??摰?1938, Florey and Chain, two scientists

from Oxford University, stumbled

across Fleming? papers on penicillin

and decided to research on improving

antibiotic extraction. One of the trainees of

Chain, Norman Heatley, was able to produce

penicillin of a much higher purity with a method

called back-extraction. The method began

with mixing an acidified mold solution with amyl

acetate, which left behind some unwanted impurities.

Next, the solution was introduced back into water via a

countercurrent system [1]. Upon freeze-drying of the mixture,

a 1% pure penicillin powder was obtained. With this method,

the team had enough penicillin to test on mice that were injected

with Streptococcus bacteria. The promising results showed that the

mice recovered after receiving a dose of penicillin [2].