Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was born in East Ayrshire, Scotland in 1881. He was a biologist and pharmacologist most famous for his discovery of the antibiotic substance penicillin in 1928. He was awarded a Nobel Prize, jointly with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain for medicine in 1945
After four years of working in a shipping company, an inheritance gave Fleming the chance to train as a physician at St Mary’s hospital London. From here he moved to the research department, specialising in the relative new science of bacteriology.
During the First World War, Fleming served in the medical corps and served in the hospitals of the Western Front, during his war service he was mentioned in dispatches.
Fleming’s greatest breakthrough occurred in 1928, when, quite by chance, he discovered an effective antibacterial agent
“When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer,” … “But I guess that was exactly what I did”.
– Alexander Fleming
Fleming had left a jar of mould unattended during his August vacation. On returning to work he noticed that a jar of Staphylococcus bacteria – a green yellow mould – had covered the dish except one area which was clear of the bacteria – rather like a halo effect.
This was Fleming’s great Eureka moment – the moment he correctly deducted that some antibacterial agent had crept in and successfully stopped the bacteria. He later identified this antibacterial agent as a rare form of Penicillium notatum which had drifted in from a mycology lab nearby. He later talked about the importance of chance in this discovery.
I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this—never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be—usually is, in fact—a false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance.
– Alexander Fleming (Lecture at Harvard University. Quoted in Joseph Sambrook, David W. Russell, Molecular Cloning (2001), Vol. 1, 153)
In 1929, he published his work in British Journal of Experimental Pathology. However, for the next decade his discovery remained relatively unknown. He was not able to produce penicillin to inject rats in sufficient quantities. By 1932, he had effectively abandoned his research on penicillin.
It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject: the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to the enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.
– Alexander Fleming.
However, in 1939, a team of scientists at Oxford University began work on trying to make a large quantity of antibacterial agents. The team under Howard Florey and Dr Ernst Chain started to work using Fleming’s penicillin culture. They were able to extract the penicillin in sufficient quantities to start producing it on a commercial scale. This enabled them to start producing the world’s first antibiotics. This revolutionised medical science and helped to eradicate many bacterial infections such as Pneumonia, syphilis, gonorrhoea, diphtheria, scarlet fever and many childbirth infections.
After the production of penicillin, the public wanted a key person to identify with the discovery. Florey and Chain were not too keen for public profile so the role of Alexander Fleming was highlighted as the person who first discovered the agent. Fleming was hailed as the hero of the antibiotic generation – a discovery which helped save many millions of lives during the Second World War and after.
For his work, he was jointly awarded a Nobel prize in 1945.
He died from a heart attack in 1955, and was buried at Westminster Cathedral.