Penicillin was one of the first antibiotics that were invented and also one of the most widely used in the world. For years, thanks to the discoveries of its creator Alexander Fleming, antibiotics based on penicillin have saved the lives of millions of people, which is why this invention is one of the most important in history. It is not necessary to add much more, today we will talk about what is and how penicillin was discovered.

What is penicillin?

Let's start with the simplest, what is penicillin, why it is so important and why, among other things, has made its inventor a Nobel Prize. Penicillins are a certain set of antibiotics with the ability to eliminate bacteria that cause infections in the human body. These antibiotics are originated from a particular species of fungus known as Penicillium and also serve to prevent bacterial infections, especially those that are caused by Gram-positive bacteria, of which we have already spoken on previous occasions.

Penicillins are one of the first antibiotics used in history to treat infections and other serious diseases, in fact, they are still used regularly in modern medicine. All penicillins are β-lactam antibiotics (beta-lactams), that is, antibiotic molecules with β-lactam nucleus and there are different types of penicillins, each of which reacts against bacteria to a different degree, some of the most penicillin types Employees are:

Ampicillin

Amoxicillin

Flucloxacillin

Phenoxymethylpenicillin

How was penicillin invented?

Penicillin was the first antibiotic used in medicine and its discovery is attributed to Alexander Fleming, who along with other medical scientists won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1945, a mention more than deserved after such a contribution. The discovery of penicillin occurred in a somewhat casual way and was reported by Fleming himself, who on the morning of September 28, 1928, was studying bacterial cultures in the basement of the St. Mary's Hospital laboratory in London.

Fleming was studying Staphylococcus bacteria by then but, after being away for almost a month from London, he forgot a petri dish containing bacteria near an open window. Returning to his experiments, he found that his experiment had broken down because the samples had become contaminated with a kind of mold that had entered with the wind.

Fleming's blessed curiosity made the scientist, instead of throwing his ruined experiment in the trash, put his petri dish under the microscope. What he observed was that not only the mold had contaminated the entire contents of the plate, but around it, there was a clear, clean area in which the mold had killed the bacteria. After identifying the mold as Penicillium fungi, Fleming was optimistic about the clear results: the Penicillium eliminated the deadly Staphylococcus bacteria once and for all.

Source

Although, soon after, our hero lost a little confidence when questioning about how possible it was to use this fungus as an antibiotic in reality and how safe it was for the human body, his numerous investigations, tests, and clinical trials gave him the necessary security to develop and complete the discovery. At this point, much had to do with his university colleagues, including Sir Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, both from the University of Oxford and with whom he shares the Nobel Prize.

Finally, after Fleming's colleagues demonstrated that penicillin could be used perfectly in humans as an antibiotic, it was first tested in humans. Orvan Hess and Bumstead Juan were the first people to use penicillin as an antibiotic and the results were a complete success. Since then, penicillin antibiotics have saved a huge number of lives around the world.

Well, very interesting, do not you think? The way in which Fleming made his discovery is simply fascinating.

I hope this publication is to your liking, and I bring you knowledge.