Alexander Fleming (to the 140th anniversary of his birth)

Alexander Fleming is a prominent Scottish scientist, Nobel laureate, and bacteriologist who discovered penicillin. He was born near the small town Darwell in Scotland. He studied at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School and received his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from London University. The research of the young scientist began with the study of the etiology, diagnosis and vaccine therapy of infectious diseases, he soon began working on finding treatment options for patients with bacterial infections with a talented military doctor Almroth Wright. Working in the Royal Military Medical Service during the First World War, A. Wright and O. Fleming showed that the use of antiseptics after injury does not destroy bacterial pathogens effectively. After the war, O. Fleming made an extremely important discovery of a lytic enzyme with a pronounced antibacterial effect - lysozyme. This discovery prompted him to search for antibacterial drugs actively. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered the first antibiotic – penicillin. He found that penicillin is an effective antibacterial substance that can affect pyogenic cocci and diphtheria bacilli. The widespread introduction of penicillin into clinical practice has saved hundreds millions of lives. Keywords: penicillin, lysozyme, antibiotics, bacterial infections.

History of penicillin

The history of penicillin was shaped by the contributions of numerous scientists. The ultimate result was the discovery of the mould Penicillium's antibacterial activity and the subsequent development of penicillins, the most widely used antibiotics. Following an accidental discovery of the mould, later identified as Penicillium rubens, as the source of the antibacterial principle (1928) and the production of a pure compound (1942), penicillin became the first naturally derived antibiotic. There is anecdotal evidence of ancient societies using moulds to treat infections and of awareness that various moulds inhibited bacterial growth. However, it is not clear if Penicillium species were the species traditionally used or if the antimicrobial substances produced were penicillin. In 1928, Alexander Fleming was the first to discover the antibacterial substance secreted by the Penicillium mould and concentrate the active substance involved, giving it the name penicillin. His success in treating Harry Lambert's streptococcal meningitis, an infection until then fatal, proved to be a critical moment in the medical use of penicillin. Many later scientists were involved in the stabilisation and mass production of penicillin and in the search for more productive strains of Penicillium. Among the most important were Ernst Chain and Howard Florey, who shared with Fleming the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Antimicrobial Resistance: Then and Now

Antibiotics have been regarded as one of the major discoveries of the 20th century. But the problem that came attached with is the rise of antibiotic resistance in hospitals and communities. The genetic makeup of microbes has benefitted from man's overuse of antibiotics to exploit every source of resistance genes and means of horizontal gene transmission to give rise to various mechanisms of resistance. Alexander Fleming upon accepting the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine said “It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them. There is a danger that an ignorant man may easily under dose himself and by exposing his microbes to non lethal quantities of the drug and make them resistant”. This review presents the multifaceted aspects of antibiotic resistance development, history, superbug and superresiatance and resistance data observed over the past years with an overt conclusion showing undeniable methods to overcome the discussed problem, glaringly striking that it is time to act.

Walencja odczasownikowych nazw wykonawców czynności

Łączliwość odczasownikowych derywatów zdradza ich status w obrębie kategorii nazw wykonawców czynności. Derywat może być elementem deskrypcji określonej, ta w sposób bezpośredni wskazuje na desygnat (odkrywca Ameryki = Krzysztof Kolumb; twórca Facebooka = Mark Elliot Zuckerberg). Osobną klasę stanowią nazwy specyfikujące wartość finalną czasownika, uzyskując tym samym sens jednokrotności: odkrywca penicyliny (Alexander Fleming), twórca Symfonii Patetycznej (Piotr Czajkowski). Jednak większość nazw wiąże obiekt wyznaczony konkretnym kontekstem bądź konsytuacją, nie znaczy to oczywiście, że ten obiekt stoi przy nazwie agentywnej, por. Jeżeli komuś sprzedaję obraz, to nabywca [obrazu] otrzymuje gwarancję trwałości mojego wyrobu. Nazwy zawodów zazwyczaj blokują wskazanie obiektu czynności, jest on wpisany w znaczenie derywatu, nie mówimy *piekarz chleba. Choć z innych powodów, blokady w ujawnianiu obiektu dotyczą również nazw osób o określonych skłonnościach bądź umiejętnościach (rozrabiacz, majsterkowicz,szperacz). Nazwy te dotyczą ugólnionych obiektów, wskazanie jednego z elementów zbioru tworzy wyrażenie nieakceptowalne, por. *majsterkowicz samochodzików, *żarłok kotletów, *pijak piwa. Forma obiektu czynności, który pojawia się obok derywatu, jest na ogół jednolita – to rzeczowniki w dopełniaczu, nawet wtedy, gdy w przeszłości miały inną postać (celowniki i narzędniki).

Antibiotics and Environment

Since the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928, the use of antibiotics has become the golden standard in the treatment of bacterial infections of all kinds [...]

Reappraising Fleming’s snot and mould

Alexander Fleming, a Scottish physician at the St. Mary’s Hospital, London, made two epoch-making discoveries, lysozyme and penicillin. But contrary to popular fables, the events were not that serendipitous. He was already an established microbiologist and it took him dogged labours to vindicate his discoveries. He simply had the right mind. Penicillin was especially a hard nut to crack upon which he toiled for half a year with his associates just enough to make a convincing conclusion on the antibacterial property. He in fact utterly failed in understanding what it actually was. As he himself unpretentiously stated: “I did not invent penicillin. Nature did that. I only discovered it by accident.” But that did not debar him for sharing the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain, who isolated the compound and worked out the medicinal applications. Strangely, Fleming’s biography has been presented in bits and pieces on the crucial elements of his discoveries, and usually contradictory. This chronicle is trying to mend the gaps and broken pieces in the historical records.

Sir Lawrence Bragg at the RI (1953–1966) and the Determination of the First Three-Dimensional Structure of an Enzyme at the DFRL (1965)

The transformation in the affairs of the Royal Institution (RI) and the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory (DFRL) when W. L. Bragg became the new Director there in 1953 is described. He resuscitated the moribund research efforts and injected fresh impetus into the lecture programmes mounted by the RI. In particular, he recruited a powerful team of protein crystallographers (notably D. C. Phillips, A. C. T. North, R. Poljak, Louise Johnson, and C. C. Blake), as well as strong technical backup from instrumental experts like U. Arndt. In the space of a dozen years, this team of co-workers solved the first ever structure of an enzyme, known as lysozyme, which had been discovered by Alexander Fleming in the 1920s. This was a major breakthrough, and it stimulated similar work elsewhere. The chapter also discusses what has happened to the DFRL subsequently. It is now in abeyance, and the reasons for this situation are outlined.