Florey and Chain: Penicillin (1 janv. 1937 – 1 janv. 1945)

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1937 - Australian pharmacologist and pathologist Howard Florey and German scientist Ernst Chain began to research penicillin in Oxford after reading about Fleming's discoveries. Since it is a natural product, penicillin needs to be purified; Chain devised the freeze-drying technique, which was an important part of the purification process.
1940 - Florey and Chain also didn't have the resources to produce penicillin in large amounts - they sought funding from the British government for the project, and only received £25. Thousands of bottles were used just to grow enough penicillium to experiment with. Eight mice were given a bacterial infection, and only four were given penicillin. The four mice survived, and the other four died.
1941 - penicillin was tested on a human patient dying from infection. After 3-4 days the man was recovering well and his fever had gone, however on the fifth day they ran out of penicillin. The man's fever returned and he soon died.

Florey and Chain could get no help from British chemical firms to increase production of penicillin. After the USA joined the war in 1941, the US government began to give out grants of around $80 million to businesses that manufactured penicillin. By 1943, British businesses had also started mass-producing penicillin. Mass production was sufficient for the needs of the military medics by 1944. By 1945, the US army used 2 million doses a month to treat wounded soldiers. After the war, the cost of penicillin fell, making it more accessible for general use. Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded in the Nobel Prize in 1945.

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