The story of penicillin

For centuries, people knew how to use fungi to treat inflammation. In the UK, in the mid-17th century, John Parkinson, a royal physician, knew how to treat wounds by applying moss to heal.By the end of the nineteenth century, in many parts of the UK, moldy bread pieces were used to treat wounds but these were just what happened before the doctor Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin.

The accidental discovery of Penicillin

In 1928, Flemming was a bacteriologist working at Saint Mary's Hospital in London. While examining the culture plates containing the bacteria, he discovered an unusual phenomenon: the fungus appeared on the plate and developed into mushrooms; around the fungus, the bacteria were destroyed. He concluded that the fungus has created a substance that kills bacteria. This is like an enzyme called lysozym that he discovered several years ago. This substance can kill pathogenic bacteria named Staphylococcus. However, when trying on other fungi that continue to grow, Flemming only uses the solution with the main purpose of diagnosing the disease.

Penicillin was discovered by accident by Alexander Flemming.

The fungus that grows like these shrubs is scientifically named penicillium notatum, and the substance capable of killing the bacteria is called pennicillin. Initially, penicillin was used to treat surface wounds, it only had some success because there were very few active ingredients in penicillin. Flemming tried to separate the pure penicillin but failed. Therefore, his concern about penicillin also decreased.

10 years later, in Oxford, under the direction of Australian scientist Howara Walter Florey and Ernst Boris Chain, the biochemical characteristics of lysozym, the enzyme that destroys bacteria that Flemming discovered .

After the research on lysozym was completed, Florey and Chain began to look for new research topics and they noticed penicillin, the nearly forgotten work of Flemming. In 1938, Chain and Florey were both fascinated by penicillin, about the ability it can bring to humans and they are well aware of the significance and importance of this antimicrobial agent.

Chain established the culture medium and performed the separation of penicillin from Flemming's mushroom samples, while Florey focused on the penicillin test in animals.

On May 25, 1940, scientists tested drugs on mice. The experiment was very successful. However, before testing on humans, scientists had to create pure penicillin. This is a key issue. This work was entrusted to Edward Abraham.

Edward Abraham investigated the later separation technique called adsorption chromatography. Penicillin-containing mushroom culture solution is passed through tubes filled with adsorbents; they will separate penicillin from impurities.

Florey's lab quickly turned into a small factory, tubes filled with penicillin were carefully monitored. However, the production of the plant is still low, 500 liters of cultured liquid produces only penicillin, enough to cure 4 or 5 people.

Later, the work was transferred to the United States, at which point the scientists' aim was to make penicillin on an industrial scale. Many techniques such as using ultraviolet rays, X-rays and chemicals that affect the genetic structure of fungi are all used to create high-yield penicillin. In 1943, the penicillin manufacturing project was second in the list of priority projects after the Mahattan project built the atomic bomb. In 1944, a penicillin treatment cost $ 200, however, the price quickly dropped, cheaper than the price of packaging. In 1945, Flemming, Chain and Florey were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine.

Penicillin - Weapon against infection

The effect of penicillin makes it a special medicine. It works to prevent pathogens that synthesize cell walls from protecting them. When bacteria reproduce when cell division occurs, the bacteria must create their own cell layers to protect them against invading agents from the outside environment. Penicillin has the effect of weakening this bacterial cell crust; Since there is no solid protective cover, bacterial cells will be destroyed and the bacteria will die.

Penicillin kills bacteria without harming body cells. But more and more of them are resistant to penicillin, their weapon is penicillinase, an enzyme capable of destroying the chemical structure of penicillin, making penicillin useless.

Humans have discovered pencillin in the fight against pathogenic bacteria but according to evolutionary laws, they also have weapons against them. Penicillin is just one of the many naturally occurring antibiotics that can kill bacteria. After penicillin, many other antibiotics were discovered.

In 1934, Selman Waksman and Albert Schatz found another antibiotic, Streptomycin, which was also extracted from a soil fungus. Streptomycin is used to fight tuberculosis and Waksman himself was the one who found Streptomycin and was also the first to introduce the term antibiotic.

The discovery of penicillin plays a pioneering role for a series of tracing other antibiotics and thanks to the introduction of many antibiotics that from the 1940s, the average life expectancy in the West increased from 54 to 75. year old.

Today, people know about 6,000 different types of antibiotics, but most of them are highly toxic, difficult to use in medicine, so there are only about 100 types widely used in medicine. To find them, scientists had to study soil samples from around the world to look for microorganisms capable of killing bacteria. They have put the effort to bring us many useful antibiotics.

In addition to finding antibiotics in nature, scientists still search by synthesizing artificial and semi-artificial compounds that are able to resist new strains of bacteria with stronger resistance. Today, more than 50 years after clinical trials, penicillin is still an important antibiotic in human life.

In our country, the appearance of pharmacies was available before the development of antibiotics, so the presence of penicillin was quite early to contribute to the treatment of bacterial infections. In 1950, during the war against France, GS. Dang Van Ngu grew penicillin and used culture solution to treat wounded wounded soldiers. Currently, Vietnam has many large projects to invest in producing antibiotic materials to meet the needs of treatment.

Two classic penicillins, penicillin G for injection and penicillin V, for oral use, are still used. Besides the classic penicillins, there are a lot of antibiotics that are descendants and very new from the first penicillin created in our country. It is these very new penicillins that are helping to fight infections and protect public health. Many operations will not be possible without antibiotics in general, including used penicillins.