Alexander Flemming

Alexander Fleming was a Scottish bioligist and Nobel prize winner, best known for his discovery of the sntibiotic Penicillin. He was born on the 6th of August 1881 in Lochfield, and died on the 11th of March 1955 in london.

He accidentaly discovered penicillin whilst studying influenza. He noticed on some of his petri dishes a mould, around which no bacteria grew. He studied this further and found the reason for this was the mould produced a chemical that killed the bacteria that tried to grow on the dish. He named the active ingredient Penicillin. He said "When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionise all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer," and later went on to say "But I suppose that was exactly what I did.".

However it was not Fleming who eventually turned his discovery into the antibiotic drug precribed today. Australian scientists Howard Florey and Ernst Chain are credited for deverloping the substance that Fleming discoveed so that it could be used as a drug.

References:

BBC History, Alexander Fleming, available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/fleming_alexander.shtml (28/11/13)