Penicillium Mould from Professor Alexander Fleming, 1935'

Penicillium Mould from Professor Alexander Fleming, 1935'. Penicillium Mould from Professor Alexander Fleming, 1935'. Mounted petri dish containing Pencillin culture, originally belonging to Alexander Fleming (1881-1955). This sample marks penicillin's transition from an interesting phenomenon to a potential drug. In 1928 Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) had discovered that a strain of penicillium mould exuded a substance which killed certain bacteria. Following the German firm IG Farben's announcement of the first general purpose bacteria-killing drug Prontosil, Fleming now saw it as a possible medicine and gave this sample to a colleague at St Mary's Hospital, London. Penicillin was eventually isolated in 1939, and from 1942 became an important drug. ©SSPL/Science Museum