ALEXANDER

FLEMING
• Dwi Indri rahmawati
• Eka putri nurazizah
• Edwin Doni
• Fia haniyati
• Yolanda Fitriyani
BIOGRAFI OF ALEXANDER FLEMING

Alexander Fleming was born on August 6, 1881 at his parents’

farm located near the small town of Darvel, in Scotland, UK.

In 1915, while a captain in the Medical Corps, Fleming

married Sarah Marion .

On March 11, 1955 Alexander Fleming died age 73 in London

of a heart attack. His ashes were placed in St Paul’s Cathedral.

In 1903, age 22, Alexander enrolled at London’s St Mary’s

Hospital Medical School, graduating with distinction three years
later as Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.
 In 1903, age 22, Alexander enrolled at London’s St Mary’s Hospital
Medical School, graduating with distinction three years later as Bachelor of
Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery. Rather than follow in Tom’s footsteps,
Alexander was persuaded by Almroth Wright, an authority in immunology,
to become a researcher in his bacteriology group at St Mary’s Hospital
Medical School. While carrying out this research Fleming graduated,

School in 1908, with a degree in bacteriology and the Gold Medal for top
student. St Mary’s Hospital Medical then promoted him to the role of
bacteriology lecturer. Almroth Wright was interested in our bodies’ natural
ability to fight infection.

Fleming’s Most Significant Contributions to Science : Proving that

Antiseptics Kill rather than Cure, Discovery of Lysozyme, Discovery of
Penicillin.
 In 1914 World War 1 broke out and Fleming, age 33, joined
the army, becoming a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps
working in field hospitals in France. The antiseptics, such as
carbolic acid, boric acid and hydrogen peroxide, were failing to
kill bacteria deep in wounds; worse, they were in fact lowering
the soldier’s natural resistance to infection because they were
killing white blood cells.

Fleming proved this result in the field. Wright and Fleming

published their results, but most army doctors refused to change
their ways, resulting in many preventable deaths
 His first discovery of such an agent came in 1922,
when he was 41 years old. Fleming had taken secretions
from inside the nose of a patient suffering from a head
cold. He cultured the secretions to grow any bacteria that
happened to be present.

Fleming discovered the common factor in the fluids

was an enzyme. He named his newly discovered enzyme
lysozyme. The effect of lysozyme was to destroy certain
types of microbe, rendering them harmless to people.
 On Monday, September 3, he returned to his laboratory and saw a
pile of Petri dishes he had left on his bench. The dishes contained
colonies of Staphylococcus bacteria. While he was away, one of his
assistants had left a window open and the dishes had become
contaminated by different microbes.

On March 7, 1929 he formally named the antibiotic penicillin.

Fleming published his results, showing that penicillin killed many
different species of bacteria, including those responsible for scarlet
fever, pneumonia, meningitis, and diphtheria. Furthermore, penicillin
was non-toxic and it did not attack white blood cells. Unfortunately,
the scientific world was largely underwhelmed, ignoring his discovery.
Fleming faced a number of problems:

 it was difficult to isolate penicillin from the fungus producing it

 he could not find a way of producing penicillin in high

concentrations

 penicillin seemed to be slow acting

 clinical tests of Fleming’s boss, Almroth Wright, had a generalized

dislike of chemists and refused to allow them in his laboratory.
The presence of a skilled chemist would have been a huge benefit
in terms of isolating, purifying, and concentrating penicillin.

 penicillin as a surface antiseptic showed it was not especially

effective
 In 1945 he toured America, where chemical
companies offered him a personal gift of $100,000
as a mark of respect and gratitude for his work.
Typically of Fleming, he did not accept the gift for
himself: he donated it to the research laboratories
at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School.
THANK YOU.