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In 1928, at St Mary's Hospital in London, Alexander Fleming saw that a stray mould had stopped bacteria growing around it on a lab dish, and later named its active substance penicillin. From 1939 an Oxford team led by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain purified it and proved it could cure infections.

St Mary's Hospital, London, 1928

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The story behind the card

Fleming came back from a holiday in September 1928 to find a dish of Staphylococcus bacteria spoiled by a Penicillium mould, with a clear ring around it where the bacteria had died. He published his findings in 1929 but could not make the substance pure or stable enough to use as a drug. In Oxford, Florey, Chain, Norman Heatley and colleagues learned to grow the mould and extract penicillin, and in May 1940 showed that it protected infected mice. In February 1941 they gave it to their first patient, an Oxford policeman; he improved, but the supply ran out and he died. American factories then scaled up production, and 2.3 million doses were ready for the Normandy landings in 1944. Fleming, Florey and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In his Nobel lecture Fleming warned that taking too little penicillin could make bacteria resistant to it.

Türkçe oku
Alexander Fleming 1928'de Londra'daki St Mary's Hastanesi'nde, bir kaba bulaşan küfün çevresinde bakterilerin üremediğini gördü; küfün salgıladığı maddeye sonradan penisilin adını verdi. 1939'dan itibaren Howard Florey ile Ernst Chain'in yönettiği Oxford ekibi penisilini saflaştırdı ve enfeksiyonları iyileştirdiğini kanıtladı.
St Mary's Hastanesi, Londra, 1928

Fleming Eylül 1928'de tatilden döndüğünde, stafilokok bakterisi ürettiği kaplardan birine Penicillium küfü bulaştığını gördü. Küfün çevresinde, bakterilerin öldüğü berrak bir halka vardı. Bulgularını 1929'da yayımladı, ama maddeyi ilaç olarak kullanılacak kadar saf ve dayanıklı hâle getiremedi. Oxford'da Florey, Chain, Norman Heatley ve arkadaşları küfü çoğaltmanın ve penisilini ondan ayırmanın yollarını buldu; Mayıs 1940'ta da penisilinin, bakteri bulaştırılmış fareleri ölümden koruduğunu gösterdiler. Şubat 1941'de ilaç ilk hastaya, Oxfordlu bir polise verildi; hastanın durumu düzeldi, ama penisilin tükenince hayatını kaybetti. Ardından ABD'deki fabrikalar üretimi büyüttü ve 1944'teki Normandiya çıkarmasına kadar 2,3 milyon doz hazırlandı. Fleming, Florey ve Chain 1945 Nobel Fizyoloji veya Tıp Ödülü'nü paylaştı. Fleming Nobel konuşmasında bir de uyarıda bulundu: Penisilin yetersiz dozda alınırsa bakteriler ona karşı direnç kazanabilirdi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: History of penicillin
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