BB Values Venture 58th Coy 2015 Group : Adrain,Gary,Yong Jie

1. Alexander Fleming
A Significant Contribution to Modern Medicine
1881- 1955

2. Introduction To Sir Alexander Fleming
Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 - 11 March 1955) was a Scottish
biologist, pharmacologist, and botanist. His best-known discoveries are
the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the antibiotic substance
benzylpenicillin from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he
shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard
Florey and Ernst Boris Chain. He wrote many articles on bacteriology,
immunology and chemotherapy.

3. Introduction To Sir Alexander Fleming
Fleming went to Loudoun Moor School and Darvel School, and earned a
two-year scholarship to Kilmarnock Academy before moving to London,
where he attended the Royal Polytechnic Institution. After working in a
shipping office for four years, the twenty-year-old Fleming inherited some
money from an uncle, John Fleming. His elder brother, Tom, was already
a physician and suggested to his younger sibling that he should follow the
same career, and so in 1903, the younger Alexander enrolled at St Mary’s
Hospital Medical School in Paddington; where he qualified with an MBBS
degree from the school with distinction in 1906.

4. History of Sir Alexander Fleming Venture
• Early in his medical life, Fleming became interested in the natural bacterial
action of the blood and in antiseptics.
• He was able to continue his studies throughout his military career and on
demobilization he settled to work on antibacterial substances which would
not be toxic to animal tissues.
• In 1921, he discovered in «tissues and secretions» an important bacteriolytic
substance which he named Lysozyme. About this time, he devised sensitivity
titration methods and assays in human blood and other body fluids, which he
subsequently used for the titration of penicillin.

5. History of Sir Alexander Fleming Venture
• In 1928, while working on influenza virus, he observed that mould had developed
accidently on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mould had created a
bacteria-free circle around itself. He was inspired to further experiment and he found
that a mould culture prevented growth of staphylococci, even when diluted 800
times. He named the active substance penicillin.

6. Impact of Sir Alexander Fleming Venture
• The discovery of penicillin changed the world of medicine enormously. With its
development, infections that were previously severe and often fatal, like bacterial
endocarditis, bacterial meningitis and pneumococcal pneumonia, could be easily treated.
•Even dating all the way back to World War II and today with the war in Iraq, soldiers
experienced injuries that would have been fatal without penicillin and other antibiotics
that were developed subsequently. It is really impossible for me to imagine what the
world would be like without penicillin. I question whether there would be a discipline of
infectious diseases as we know it today.
By:– Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD
Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of
Colorado Health Sciences Center

7. Impact of Sir Alexander Fleming Venture
•There were beginning treatments for pneumococcal pneumonia in the 1930s with
antisera and sulfonamides, but use of these treatments quickly came to a halt, and
everyone began using penicillin. This quickly led to a number of pharmaceutical
industries beginning to screen a variety of other natural products for antibacterial
activity, which led to a whole host of new antibiotics, such as streptomycin,
aminoglycosides, tetracycline and the like. Penicillin clearly led the way in that
development.
By:– Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD
Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of
Colorado Health Sciences Center

8. Impact of Sir Alexander Fleming Venture
•It is interesting that using penicillin for the treatment of infections like pneumococcal
pneumonia and bacterial endocarditis never had a randomized, controlled trial because
the difference with treatment was so clearly apparent that no one even thought of doing
a randomized controlled trial.
By:– Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD
Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of
Colorado Health Sciences Center

9. Thank you for your kind attention!
By: Adrian, Gary & Yong Jie
Sources:
• http://www.biography.com/people/alexander-fleming-9296894:
• – Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD------Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Disease at the University
of Colorado Health Sciences Center