Penicillin is an antibiotic that destroys bacteria by destroying the cell wall of the microorganism. It does this by inactivating an enzyme necessary for the cross linking of bacterial cell walls. The enzyme is known as the Tran peptidase. It accepts the penicillin as a substrate, it the alkanolates a nucleophilic oxygen of the enzyme, rendering it inactive. Cell wall construction stops and the bacteria soon die. The antibiotic nature of the penicillin so due to the strain lactam ring, on opening the ring strain is relieved this makes penicillin more reactive than ordinary amides.
Before penicillin a simple pinprick or tiny cut could have been lethal. There are so many people easily catching infections that would rage out of control. Children died regularly from scarlet fever, from infections of the bones, throat, stomach or, brain. Many of us would not be here today had it not been for the discovery of penicillin. In 1928, Alexander Fleming made a chance discovery from an already discarded, contaminated Petri dish. The mold that had contaminated the experiment turned out to contain powerful antibiotic, penicillin. However, though Fleming was credited with the discovery, it was over a decade before someone else turned penicillin into the miracle drug for the 20th century. The search for a wonder drug had been a focus of Fleming for some time. He had read the work of Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek, which described bacteria in 1683. It was Louis Pasteur who confirmed that bacteria actually caused diseases. This wasn’t confirmed until the 19th century. Though many scientists had this information, no one could find a chemical that could kill harmful bacteria.
Fleming had interest in the body’s fight with infections. Fleming’s first break through was with the discovery of lysozyme. This was a natural antiseptic that is found in human tears and saliva. The discovery lysozyme turned out to be an embarrassment for Fleming. Lysozyme was found to be useless against harmful diseases. Because of this unless finding, Fleming’s colleagues thought his penicillin finding was just another dead end discovery. Fleming’s consistency and creativity allowed the Russians to use lysozyme for preserving caviar. Using scientific reasoning, scientific thought and the components of creativity that helped scientist finally isolate penicillin. Scientist also realized that in a world of controlled experiments, chance is seldom acknowledge as a contributing factor in important discoveries. The discovery of penicillin is one example of rare exceptions.
The scientific method is typically known for its orderliness and control, in fact, we are taught that without these characteristics, experimental research may yield invalid results. Therefore, chance should play little or no role in the process of the scientific method (Chance and method; by: Fran Slowiczek, Ed. D.I and Pamela M. Peters, PhD) History has taught us some chance discoveries have led to startling new ideas that eventually directed important further scientific investigation of natural phenomena. In the late 1800, bacteriologists and microbiologist set out to identify substances with therapeutic potential. One of the greatest problems faced by these scientists during their studies was the contaminations of “pure” culture by invading microorganisms, especially fungi or bacteria- a problem that still plagues the modern-day microbiologist. It is this problem of contamination, which is most often indentified as leading to the “chance” observation that eventually led to the discovery of penicillin (Chance and Method; by: Fran Slowiczek, Ed. D, Pamela M. Peters, PhD). Without the components of creativity; Foraging, Reflecting, Adopting, Nurturing and knuckling down the chance discoveries would not have fostered into numerous finding. These scientist gathered information from past discoveries, too generate new ideas, select past ones, improve on past ones, and never gave up.
References
Drug Store Drugstore and Pharmacy History. (n.d.). Soderlund Pharmacy Museum. Retrieved September 9, 2012, from http://www.drugstoremuseum.com/sections/level_info2.php?level=1&level_id=49 penicillin, M. H. (n.d.). Penicillin: the first miracle drug. Utah State University: Intermountain Herbarium. Retrieved September 9, 2012, from http://herbarium.usu.edu/fungi/funfacts/penicillin.htm