Alexander Fleming

For other people named Alexander Fleming, see Alexander Fleming (disambiguation).

Sir Alexander Fleming
FRS FRSE FRCS
Fleming in his laboratory, c. 1943
Born(1881-08-06)6 August 1881
Darvel, Ayrshire, Scotland
Died11 March 1955(1955-03-11) (aged 73)
London, England
Resting placeSt Paul's Cathedral
Alma mater
Known forDiscovery of penicillin and lysozyme
Spouses
Sarah Marion McElroy
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(m. 1915; died 1949)​
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(m. 1953)​
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsSt Mary's Hospital, London
Signature

Sir Alexander Fleming FRS FRSE FRCS[2] (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish physician and microbiologist, best known for discovering the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance, which he named penicillin. His discovery in 1928 of what was later named benzylpenicillin (or penicillin G) from the mould Penicillium rubens has been described as the "single greatest victory ever achieved over disease".[3][4] For this discovery, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain.[5][6][7]

He also discovered the enzyme lysozyme from his nasal discharge in 1922, and along with it a bacterium he named Micrococcus lysodeikticus, later renamed Micrococcus luteus.

Fleming was knighted for his scientific achievements in 1944.[8] In 1999, he was named in Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century. In 2002, he was chosen in the BBC's television poll for determining the 100 Greatest Britons, and in 2009, he was also voted third "greatest Scot" in an opinion poll conducted by STV, behind only Robert Burns and William Wallace.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference NobelPrizeBio was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Colebrook, L. (1956). "Alexander Fleming 1881–1955". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 2: 117–126. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1956.0008. JSTOR 769479. S2CID 71887808.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Ligon, B. Lee (2004). "Sir Alexander Fleming: Scottish researcher who discovered penicillin". Seminars in Pediatric Infectious Diseases. 15 (1): 58–64. doi:10.1053/j.spid.2004.02.002. PMID 15175996.
  5. ^ "Alexander Fleming Biography". Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Foundation. 1945. Archived from the original on 30 January 2011. Retrieved 27 March 2011.
  6. ^ Hugh, T. B. (2002). "Howard Florey, Alexander Fleming and the fairy tale of penicillin". The Medical Journal of Australia. 177 (1): 52–53. doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2002.tb04643.x. PMID 12436980. S2CID 222048204.
  7. ^ Cruickshank, Robert (1955). "Sir Alexander Fleming, F.R.S." Nature. 175 (4459): 355–356. Bibcode:1955Natur.175..663C. doi:10.1038/175663a0. PMC 1023893. PMID 13271592.
  8. ^ McIntyre, N. (2007). "Sir Alexander Fleming". Journal of Medical Biography. 15 (4): 234. doi:10.1258/j.jmb.2007.05-72. PMID 18615899. S2CID 77187550.