ALEXANDER FLEMING
Birth; 6h August 1881/Death: 11h march 1955
Sir Alexander Fleming was a Scottish bacteriologist
whose discovery of Penicillin in 1928 shot him into great fame.
This invention prepared the way for the highly effective practice
of antibiotic therapy for infectious diseases.
He completed his degree at St. Mary's Hospital Medical Sclhool under London University in 1906.
Immediately after that Fleming plunged himself into serious experiments to discover antibacterial
substances that would be nontoxic to human tissues
During the First World War he also served as an active member of the Royal Army Medical
Corps. However, even at those times of hardship and trouble, he was eager to continue with his
experiments.
In 1918, after the World War, he returned to research and teaching at St. Mary's.
In 1921 Fleming identified and isolated lysozyme, an enzyme found in certain animal
tissues and secretions. It is also found in secretions like tears and saliva and they exhibit antibiotic
activity. While working with Staphylococcus bacteria in 1928, Fleming found a substance that
prevented growth of the bacteria and he called it penicillin.
Fleming shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Ernst Boris Chain and
Howard Walter Florey. Though it was Fleming who made the basic discovery Ernst Boris Chain
and Howard Walter Florey toiled further in the isolation, purification, testing, and quantity
production of penicillin.
Fleming was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1943 and knighted in 1944.
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