Post on 20-Apr-2023
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Thursday, 26 March 2020
Antibiotic Discovery
Outcome 1 Outcome 2 Outcome 3
Give examples of painkillers and other medicines to treat symptoms
Learning Objective: To be able to explain how drugs were developed
Describe Fleming’s discovery and explain it’s importance
Evaluate the change in treatments over the years
Alexander Fleming Penicillinmicroorganisms Cultures
Key words:
Thursday, 26 March 2020
Uses of plant poisons as medicinal drugs
• Quinine, produced by chichona trees- treats malaria.
• Aspirin, produced by willow trees- treats symptoms of disease, such as pain and fever
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Thursday, 26 March 2020
Write down a list of everything you know about penicillin and who discovered it (1 minute)
Thursday, 26 March 2020
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/zxt6n39
Now add 5 more points about penicillin and it’s discovery using the information on the video to help
Alexander Fleming Penicillinmicroorganisms Cultures
Key words:
Thursday, 26 March 2020
What is Penicillin?
Penicillin is an antibiotic. ‘Antibiotic’ literally means ‘against life’ –
but antibiotics only kill life that is harmful to living creatures, i.e. bacteria.
A bacterial infection is caused by millions of tiny bacteria that are trying to survive and multiply in the body. An antibiotic attacks and kills these bacteria.
Before the development of penicillin, many people suffered and died from bacterial infections that are no longer considered dangerous today.
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Thursday, 26 March 2020
So did Fleming actually discover penicillin?
Penicillin is made from a mould called penicillium. This mould was first discovered in the early 19th century by John Sanderson who found that very little grew near it.
In the 1880s, Joseph Lister noted these observations and wrote to his brother to say that he intended to try penicillin on infected wounds.
Lister successfully treated a nursewith an infected wound with penicillin, but did not leave any notes on the case and apparently did not continue his research in this area.
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Thursday, 26 March 2020
Who was Alexander Fleming?
Alexander Fleming was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1881. He was the son of a farmer.
When he was 13, he moved to London to live with his older brother.
After graduating from the University of London, he became a bacteriologist at St. Mary’s Hospital in the city.
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Thursday, 26 March 2020
The great re-discovery of penicillin!
It was in the laboratory of St. Mary’s Hospital in 1928 that Fleming rediscovered the properties of penicillin. This source comes from a biography, The Life of Sir Alexander Fleming, written in 1963. It describes when Fleming was visited by his friend, Pryce.
‘Fleming was in his little laboratory as usual, surrounded by innumerable dishes. The cautious Scot disliked being separated from his cultures before he was quite sure there was nothing more to be learned from them... Fleming took up several old cultures and removed the lids. Several of the containers had been contaminated with mould... ‘As soon as you uncover a culture dish,’ he said to Pryce, ‘something tiresome is sure to happen. Things fall out of the air.’
Suddenly he stopped talking, then, after a moment’s observation, said... ‘That’s funny...’ On the cultures at which he was looking there was a growth of mould, as on several of the others, but on this particular one, all around the mould, the colonies of staphylococci had been dissolved...’
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Thursday, 26 March 2020
So what did the mould look like?
Alexander Fleming Penicillinmicroorganisms Cultures
Key words:
Thursday, 26 March 2020
How had it got into Fleming’s dish?
• On investigation, Fleming found that penicillin spores had got on to the dish, perhaps blown into his lab through an open window. The penicillin was killing the staphylococci.
• Whether the account we just read it how it really happened, we cannot be sure – even Fleming’s own accounts of how it happened varied! Does that matter?
• The important point is that Fleming identified the mould and saw its significance – that penicillin could be applied to or injected into areas where there were penicillin-sensitive microbes .
• However, Fleming did not have the facilities or the support to develop and test his idea that penicillin could fight infection.
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Thursday, 26 March 2020
Answer the questions in your book.
• Why is Fleming usually thought of as the discoverer of penicillin?
• Why do you think that so many people observed the power of penicillin but did not develop it as a cure?
Alexander Fleming Penicillinmicroorganisms Cultures
Key words:
Thursday, 26 March 2020
Questions on penicillin
1. What is penicillin?2. What part did chance play in the discovery of penicillin?3. How did war influence the development of penicillin?4. How did governments help in the mass production of
penicillin?5. What other factors were important in the development
of the drug?6. Why was penicillin mass produced in 1942-1945 and not
before?7. Who deserves most of the credit for Penicillin?8. Add the major steps in the discovery/development of
penicillin to your ongoing timeline.