The Advent of Penicillin
The advent of penicillin forever changed the world of medicine at its discovery with its ability to treat diseases, deadly at the time, that are now considered commonplace and easily treatable. Penicillin was one of the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century, as antibiotics are one of the most highly prescribed drugs in the world today. Although its discovery is often described as serendipitous, the process by which it was cultivated was quite meticulous, and continued attention has been paid to penicillin's further development. It is because penicillin and its derivatives have played such a vital role in everyday medicine that it is such an important topic.
Penicillin works by virtue of its beta-lactam ring that specifically binds to microbial enzymes in bacterial cell walls, and keeps the cell membrane structures from linking up. Eventually, if the bacterium keeps dividing, the cell membrane will become increasingly weaker and lyse. The beta-lactam ring is very simple in and of itself, but its ability to remain potent with several different functional groups attached to it makes it spectacular in its applications.
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As was noted earlier, the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming was not as spontaneous as it might originally appear. The antibacterial effects of many molds had been observed numerous times before, and Fleming was doing testing in this area and in the area of lysozymes throughout the 1920s. When he first noticed the antibacterial effects of the penicillium strain of bacteria in 1928, he thought it unremarkable, though further test...
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... a practical form of the drug. This set off a search in medicine for more antibiotics, however, scientists would have to look away from the natural world this time.
Although selective breeding and radiation therapy already give penicillin a storied history in biotechnology, the advent of new genetic engineering techniques that allow for designer drugs to be produced have kept penicillin on the forefront of antibiotic treatment. Often, the mechanism of action is still the same as far as the chemical structure is concerned. However, the means of production are much more efficient in terms of cost and evaluating new strains of bacteria. These two qualities are highly desirable in the field since bacteria have the ability to quickly mutate and render standard antibiotics ineffective.
Bibliography:
Biotechnology in Society, Dr. McClure, Jan-May 2000
The Factor of War in the Development of Penicillin The discovery, development and subsequent use of penicillin can be considered to be one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history. There were many factors, which were involved in the development of penicillin, and it could be argued that war was the most important, but other factors were also responsible. Alexander Fleming was working in London as a bacteriologist in 1928 when he noticed that a growth of a mould called penicillin produced a substance that actually killed the germs he was working on. He realised that this might be very important and a year later he wrote an article about his findings. However, Fleming did not have the facilities or the support to develop and test his idea that penicillin could fight infection, and he didn't develop it further.
Adegoke AA, Tom M, Okoh AI, Jacob S (2010) Studies on multiple antibiotic resistant bacterial isolated from surgical site infection. Scient Res. Essays 5:3876-81.
Fleming reasoned that the fact that it killed the bacteria in the lab, that it could also be used to kill bacteria in humans, but after attempting and failing to grow more penicillin, he eventually gave up on the idea.
The natural components of antibiotics have been used as local remedies long before humans understood the reasons why these sometimes-radical treatments worked. Penicillin became the first manufactured antibiotic after physician Alexander Fleming published articles regarding this bacteria-disabling mold in 1928. Come 1932, penicillin was commonly used to treat infected war injuries, saving the lives of unnumbered soldiers (Lewis). Since then, penicillin has b...
18). Even though those diseases were not his goal to cure it still made penicillin revolutionary for the time being. Fleming now knew how to make penicillin and started to mass produce it. In the 1930s during the upgrading process of penicillin Fleming himself was cured of severe conjunctivitis. Then in the 1940s the fully developed penicillin was created. The creation of penicillin cured a wide variety of diseases, which led to the world excelling in growth, and penicillin improved the way of medicine at the time. The variety of diseases cured by penicillin made it a must have antibiotic. Penicillin was used to cure multiple diseases including syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, gangrene, pneumonia, diphtheria, and scarlet fever ( Common Antibiotics ). All the diseases have one thing in common, they all have the ability to spread, some faster than others. When a disease is discovered people tried to make a cure. When penicillin was made diseases that were thought to never have a cure were cured. People began to demand that penicillin be sold in local pharmacies. Penicillin was released to help people with the variety of diseases curable by
Compounding all of these solutions, the pharmaceutical industry needs to conduct extensive research on developing new antibiotics for various pathogenic bacteria by studying the bacterial structure. This will help scientists to formulate ways of counteracting the functions of the various constituents of bacteria.
Approximately one year ago in Kentucky, a man went to sleep thinking he might have caught a flu. The next day, he is rushed to the local hospital while coughing up chunks of lung tissue; within a few hours he experiences organ failure and lips into a coma. Over the next two days, two other patients come in with the same symptoms and die almost immediately. This epidemic that swept over this small area in Kentucky was an ultra resistant strain of staph infection known as MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (Eisler, 2013). MRSA and other species of resistant bacteria have arisen from the global overuse of antibiotics. Over the years, resistant strains of bacteria have become more and more difficult to fend of using common antibiotic treatments. If something is not done to stop antibiotic resistance, completely resistant strains of bacteria, which we will be unable to kill through use of antibiotics.
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has presented many problems in our society, including an increased chance of fatality due to infections that could have otherwise been treated with success. Antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, but overexposure to these drugs give the bacteria more opportunities to mutate, forming resistant strains. Through natural selection, those few mutated bacteria are able to survive treatments of antibiotics and then pass on their genes to other bacterial cells through lateral gene transfer (Zhaxybayeva, 2011). Once resistance builds in one patient, it is possible for the strain to be transmitted to others through improper hygiene and failure to isolate patients in hospitals.
Penicillin, derived from the mold Penicillium, is the first antibiotic to successfully treat bacterial infections on humans. It was accidentally discovered by scientist, Alexander Fleming. While Fleming was growing Staphylococcus, a serious and often deadly infection, in a dish, he noticed the bacteria had stopped growing after a mold found its way
Penicillin G reacts by in interfering with the cell wall mucopeptide synthesis while it is active multiplication will result with bactericidal activity against susceptible microorganisms. Penicillin G is metabolized through Hepatic. Microorganisms that can be sensitive to Penicillin G staphylococcie (non pénicillinase- producing strains), streptococci (groups A, B, C, G, H, L, and M) pneumococci and Neisseria meningitides, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Corynebacterium diphtheria, and Bacillus anthracis. The treatment dosage for Penicillin G is 600,000 units/1mL syringe and 1.2 million units/2mL syringe. The microorganisms that can be resistant to Penicillin G are penicillinase-producing bacteria (some strains of staphylococci)
Since antibiotics, such as penicillin, became widely available in the 1940s, they have been called miracle drugs. They have been able to eliminate bacteria without significantly harming the other cells of the host. Now with each passing year, bacteria that are immune to antibiotics have become more and more common. This turn of events presents us with an alarming problem. Strains of bacteria that are resistant to all prescribed antibiotics are beginning to appear. As a result, diseases such as tuberculosis and penicillin-resistant gonorrhea are reemerging on a worldwide scale (1).
Discovery and Development of Penicillin. (2014, April 4). Retrieved from American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html
Alexander Fleming started the history of antibiotics in the 1920's with his discovery of penicillin.When penicillin was first discovered and used widely, it was touted as a wonder drug, and consequently was used as one.Though not necessarily harmful to the patient penicillin was used for much more infections than it was able to combat.Today the same practice is observed in the medical profession, however at this point it is due more to the detriment of an uneducated public.Studies have been carried out that show the huge over usage of antibiotics.In the seventies Soyka et al, concluded, "60% of physicians surveyed gave antibiotics for the treatment of the common cold."[3], and by common knowledge the common cold is a virus, something that cannot be treated by an antibiotic.Nyquist
The discovery of antibiotics is attributed to Alexander Fleming who discovered the first antibiotic to be commercially used (Penicillin) in approximately 1928. An antibiotic, also known as an antimicrobial, is a medication that is taken in order to either destroy or slow the growth rate of bacteria. Antibiotics are integral to the success of many medical practises, such as; surgical procedures, organ transplants, the treatment of cancer and the treatment of the critically ill. (Ramanan Laxminarayan, 2013)
Antibiotics were first discovered by Professor Alexander Fleming in 1928 by accident when cleaning up his laboratory. This coincidental discovery lead to Fleming and many other scientists changing society and medicine and the way people looked at what we now see as simple to treat. Prior to the discovery, surgery was almost impossible to perform due to the risk of infection, and nothing to counteract the bacteria. With the introduction of antibiotics, infections now being treated were before considered to be dangerous and even deadly. Antibiotics have saved millions of lives in the approximate 100 years since it has been discovered.