FAMOUS CREATION OF THE DAY PENICILLIN Before the advent of penicillin, the world was literally thrown into

o chaos and turmoil as patients with syphilis and other similar bacterial infections were

left to their fate of death

. Its discovery brought so much hope with it and

inspired several medical the medical field. bacteria.

experts to make more significant discoveries in

DESCRIPTION: Penicillin is an antibiotic that eliminates infection-causing

HOW IT WORKS: Penicillin destroys bacterial

a bacterial enzyme necessary for cell wall

organisms by reacting with formation, called transpeptidase.

The enzyme mistakes penicillin as one of its building blocks and penicillin in turn inactivates it by rendering it unable to synthesise or repair bacterial cell

walls. By bonding with the transpeptidase, penicillin weakens the cell walls of the bacteria thus making it unable to control water intake into the cell. Water flows into the bacteria cells and continues to do so since the cell walls have been severely weakened; the bacterial cell continues to expand from the incoming

water until it explodes

and dies.

DISCOVERER(S) OF PENICILLIN: In 1897, Ernest

Duchesne completed his doctorate on the interaction between E.coli and Penicillium glaucum. He noted that the penicillium inhibited the growth of the E.coli bacteria.

In 1928, a British medical doctor called Alexander Fleming mistakenly left out cultures of staphylococci prior to taking a month long vacation. On his return, he noted that the cultures had been apparently contaminated by a fungus

and so, he threw them out thinking they had been destroyed. He later retrieved them to show a former colleague who came visiting and it was only then he noticed the inhibition zone around the fungi. This sparked his interest and spurred him to run more experiments on the anti-bacterial properties of this fungus which he named Penicillin. He found penicillin to possess very powerful

antibacterial properties; he diluted crude extracts of the fungus mould to about a thousand times and it was still effective in killing bacteria. However due to his inability to extract penicillin from the mould in substantial quantities, he

stopped work on it. In the early 1930s, Dr Cecil Paine, a former student of Fleming, would become inspired to carry out research on penicillin after reading Flemings glowing account of penicillins potential in the medical field. His first successful usage of the fungus was on a miner whose eyes had become infected by

a stone lodged in his eye; Dr Paine dabbed the miners eyes thoroughly with crude extracts of penicillin and was able to save the eye. His second successful

attempt was on a baby who had contracted gonorrhoea from its mother and was due to lose its eyesight; again, Dr Paine soaked the babys eyes thoroughly with penicillin and was able to save them.

EVOLUTION OF PENICILLIN: In 1938, Dr Howard

W. Florey came across Dr Flemings paper on penicillin and this prompted him to put

together a team of scientists and technicians that included Dr Ernst B. Chain and Dr Leslie Falk, to carry further testing on it. Dr Chain began working on cultures of penicillin and successfully extracted pure penicillin from a culture. Tests on mice inoculated with streptococcus bacteria, were then carried out and all the mice recovered. Afterward, tests were then carried out on human patients and it was further established that penicillin was a safe and effective drug in combating bacterial infections. The problem however was that, only one part penicillin could be retrieved from a million part penicillium mould culture. In 1942,

a race against time began, to find a penicillin species that could yield pure extracts in economically viable quantities. One was eventually found on a

mouldy cantaloupe in a marketplace in Illinois; it was identified to be penicillium chrysogeum. Scientists then created a mutation of this species by irradiating it with X-rays/UV rays and this mutation produced a 1000 times more penicillin than the first pure extraction. A new way of production was also perfected by growing the mould in large metal tanks and completely aerating the mould nutrient thus causing the fungi to grow throughout the tank instead of just

on top. By the end of World War II, penicillin production had increased to about 7

million patients per year. Paine however, didnt publish his successful use of penicillin and began research on a different field.

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ONLINE SOURCES
1) 2) 3) 4) University of Hawaii Botany archives: Penicillin, the wonder drug Quora: How does penicillin work? Medical News Today: What is Penicillin and how does it work? Wikipedia : Penicillin