PROIECT LA ENGLEZĂ

“DISCOVERIES THAT CHANGED THE

WORLD.”
Profesor: Cerasela Marleneanu
Elevă: Rusu Georgiana Elena
Clasa: a X-a B
■ 1. Penicillin - How this discovery changed the world
■ 2. Penicillins are a group of beta-lactam antibiotics derived from fungal species of the genus
Penicillium.
■ 3. In 1928 Alexander Fleming showed how penicillin can be obtained from the fungus
Penicillinum. But to get an effective drug, the work of the Australian Howard Florey, the German
Ernst Boris Chain and the British Norman Heatley was required.The English doctor John
Burdon-Sanderson tried the same method before Fleming, but the product was too
toxic.Penicillin entered therapy in 1942.
■ 4. Although the discovery of the first penicillin is attributed to Alexander Fleming (1928), in
1870 the English physician John Scott Burdon-Sanderson had already discovered a link between
mold and the cultivation of bacteria. The best known examples are natural penicillins:
benzylpenicillin (penicillin G) and phenoxymethylpenicillin (penicillin V).
■ 5. The trials took place first on animals, namely rabbits and mice, which survived the
experiment, but also on humans used as guinea pigs. One of them was the doctor's assistant, who
ate the mold without suffering any negative consequences. He would be cured in recent years by
Fleming of a rebellious sinusitis, also with the help of penicillin.
■ 6. Because Alexander Fleming did not have the resources to continue his research, it took
another 12 years for his discovery to become the penicillin we know today. He appealed to Dr.
Howard Florey, an expert at Oxford University, who, together with Dr. Ernst Chain, did very
successful studies.Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
■ 7. Penicillin was one of the first antibiotics used by doctors to cure their patients of life-
threatening infectious diseases.It should be mentioned that long before Fleming, a Romanian, the
world-famous scientist and bacteriologist VictorBabes talked about the beneficial effects of
microorganisms.The first to report, in 1885, the inhibitory action of substances developed by
microorganisms was the Romanian scientist Victor Babeş. He also suggested that these
substances could be used therapeutically for the destruction of pathogens. These facts are a
brilliant anticipation of the Romanian scientist who, 50 years before the epoch-making discovery
of Fleming (obtaining penicillin), intuited the practical effects that microbial antagonism could
have for therapeutics. "