When you say luck. The one that this man had was great, but they were his Curiosity and acuteness of ingenuity to transform it into a favorable opportunity, putting it at the service of the community. We are talking about Alexander Flemingthe scientist who with the discovery of the first antibiotic has changed the course of the History of medicine and humanity.
“Decisions that we make for any particular reason, or for completely incongruous reasons or decisions taken by others may have profound repercussions on our career”: these words pronounced on the occasion of the honorary degree, received in 1945 by the University of Harvard, a few months before being awarded the nobel prizemake the idea of the red thread that has traveled all its existence: randomness.
From the discovery of penicillin to the risks ofantibiotic-resistance: 70 years ago the father of antibiotics diedafter a life full of twists and turns, which is worth telling.
A difficult childhood with a fortune stroke
Fleming It comes from a modest family In a rural area of Scotland, in Darval, theAugust 8, 1881in the midst of boundless fields away from the noise of the city. His is not an easy childhood: He loses his father at 7 years old And after graduation he reaches his brothers in London looking for work, which he finds in a navigation company where he remains up to 19 years.
In 1901, during the Transvaal war (today South Africa), he enlisted as a volunteer with his brothers, but there are too many members and none of the Fleming manages to leave for the front.
In 1902, the first stroke of luck. Alexander inherit 250 pounds After the death of Uncle John and thanks to unexpected money he decides to leave the job and devote himself to the studies that interest him: wants to become a surgeon. But which university to choose? The decision falls on the Saint Mary’s Hospitalwho knew for having previously played against his water polo team (according to Fleming himself, a “not very relevant” reason). As In 1906 he graduated in Surgery.
The random encounter that makes him change his mind
The passion for sport marks another fundamental stage of the scientist’s life, again random: after graduation Fleming comes into contact with John Freeman, a colleague who convinces him to constitute the hospital shooting club in the hospital, a discipline in which Alexander excelled, in addition to water polo. Attending it will know Almrth Wrigthwell -known bacteriologist, creator of Department of Inoculationwhich in a short time will become his mentor. His was a small laboratory, in which clinicals and researchers operated, studying vaccinations, which were already considered the winning weapon against the diseases that devastated the planet. Fleming, fascinated by this new challenge of medicine, He leaves the surgery and throws himself headlong into the research.
The Great War and the urgency of vaccines
With the outbreak of the First World War The health emergency is global. Dipterite, tetanus, septicemia, gangrene, war injuries infections: doctors are called to treat diseases that are unable to face. Fleming follows Wright in France in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where a laboratory dedicated to the Administration of anti-stiff vaccine to the army soldiers, as well as research. By now the mission was only one: Destroy the bacterium and save the guestfight infection and heal man.
The cold and tear happy
Is the 1922: Fleming, very cooled, He decides to use his nasal mucus for an experiment. He puts him in cultivation on some laboratory plates, with the intention of developing some microbo, but – as often happens when you have a closed nose – his tear eyes: and right A tear falls on a crop plate. There and then the fact does not seem relevant, but after a few weeks the scientist notes that the bacteria grew everywhere except at the point of tear: There is therefore a natural antibiotic substance in it.
Fleming thus discovers an enzyme, which he will call “Lisozima”, that is “skioglier”able to dissolve precisely the walls that cover the bacteria, weakening the infectious charge.
However, the discovery has its limits: on the one hand, expert staff is missing to develop it (chemists and biochemicals), on the other the enzyme is effective only towards harmless bacteria, not against pathogenic ones, carriers of diseases.
From an oversight the Salvita mold
In the 1928 – When all the workshops in the world study the flu virus, after the millions of victims of the 1918 “Spanish” – the case comes to the aid of the scholar once again: while on vacation in suffolk with the family (his wife and son Robert) he is achieved by the news of the appointment as a professor of biology at the University of London. So he decides to return to the capital and passes from the laboratory to check the plates he had left in culture. Among these notes an open remained by mistake: within the Blue-greenish mold that it has formed there is a white area, A hole of bacteriain which the colonies of Staphylococcus aureus they are absent. In that instant Fleming remembers the tear of 1922, but understands that this time the discovery is of much bigger flow rate. «When I woke up immediately after the dawn, that September 28, 1928, I certainly did not intend to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the first antibiotic in the world, or killer of bacteria. But I suppose it is exactly what I did, “he will declare a few years later.
The first antibiotic: mold, of the genre Penicillium (which means “brush”) had produced one antibacterial substanceand for this he will come called “penicillin”.
1940: The world needs penicillin
It is still early to sing victory: penicillin is difficult to extract, it is quickly eliminated from the body and initially it is possible to produce it only in low dosages. The world instead needs it, and once again the chemists are missing to produce it in the laboratory.
The Second World War, in its tragedy, will carry a turning point in the research scenario. With the approval of racial laws, many German Jews flee from Germany: among these there is Ernst Boris Chainpharmacologist and biochemical, which reaches Oxford and together with the Australian Anatomopologist Howard Florey And other researchers (called “Oxford boys”), decides to carry on Fleming’s studies.
With the outbreak of the conflict The request for penicillin grows exponentially: It is necessary to produce it on a large scale to cope with the rampant infections that affect soldiers and civilians. To shake public opinion, with an article published on Timesit will be the healing defined miraculous of a friend of Flemingsuffering from meningitis and edited with the new antibiotic.
The United Kingdom is forced to ask for help from the United States and pharmaceutical companies unite the forces to commonly put the knowledge and tools of research, with a single purpose: mass production. However, the road is not simple and it will take time before identifying a satisfactory method to isolate mold in large quantities. And to do it will be a woman.
From a melon the perfect mold
His name is Mary Huntone of the 130 women employed in the search for “perfect mold”. We are in 1941: the American microbiologist and bacteriologist, while taking a tour of the market, is hit by one golden mold on a melon. Another lucky case: it is Penicillium Crysogenuma mushroom that produces penicillin ten times more than any other. The discovery of the researcher, since then nicknamed “Moldy Mary” (muffosa Mary), starts the large scale production of antibiotics, destined to save many lives all over the world.
The story tells that the same British Prime Minister Winston Churchill He healed from pneumonia thanks to penicillin, thus managing to participate in the Casablanca conference of 1943; as well as the singer and actress Marlene Dietrich He survived a serious pneumonia taking care of the antibiotic, while he was on tour for Anglo-American troops, in Bari in 1944.
After the nobel a new love
After the war, Alexander Fleming made his mission, achieving the goal he had set himself: finding universal cure for infections. To crown its success in October [1945 The biggest recognition arrives, the Nobel Prize for Medicineassigned to the scientist together with the other two “boys of Oxford” Chain and Florey.
After a few dark years, marked by two very painful mourning (the death of his mentor Almroth Wright in 1947 and his wife in 1949), Fleming returns to his work at the Inoculation Department, of which he had hired the direction.
A new chapter is about to open up in his life again: in the team of researchers who collaborate with him thanks to the scholarships of the British Council there is the Greek Amalia Vourekaspecialized in the study of the resistance of bacteria. His intelligence and beauty do not escape Alexander: the two collaborate for a long time in perfect harmony, so much so that – when they meet again in Athens in 1952 at an international conference – he will declare her love, marrying her the following year, regardless of the 30 years of difference.
The inheritance: fight antibiotic resistance
Alexander Fleming He dies suddenlyfor a heart attack, March 11, 1955 in London. What he leaves is a heavy inheritance: not only his intuitions derived from a brilliant intellect and never satisfied with knowledge, but also the responsibility of making a good use of the results of his discoveries.
After penicillinthere will be many other antibiotics identified by the scientific community: Streptomycin, tetracycline, cephalosporine. The challenge with which we deal today, however, is the antibiotic resistancedefined by the World Health Organization “The greatest global threat to human health“. In practice it is the ability developed by the bacteria themselves to oppose the drugs that should annihilate them, and often it is precisely the microbes who win the battle.
«That of the Resistance is a phenomenon linked to evolutiontherefore in a certain sense natural and inevitable », he comments Fabrizio Pregliascoprofessor of hygiene at the University of Milan, health director of the Galeazzi-Sant’Ambrogio hospital in Milan. «The need to produce antibiotics with high dosages and the subsequent use that has been made have however worsened the situation. On the one hand the massive appeal to these molecules in farmson the other incorrect use also by citizens (There are still many who take them without indication of the doctor, perhaps for the flu) have favored the creation of strains of resistant bacteria “.
Which instruments we have To combat the phenomenon? Information and research. “The first is fundamental because it is from our homes that a responsible use of these drugs must start,” continues Pregliasco, “the second must not stop, both through monitoring in hospital structures – the most at risk – and with the spread of vaccinations that have the purpose of preventing infections”.
Fleming himself, in truth, had already warned us, during the Nobel Prize acceptance speech, declaring: «The moment could come when penicillin can be purchased by anyone in stores. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man can easily take a lower amount and, exposing microbes to non -lethal quantities of the drug, make them resistant “.
