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Saloni Dattani's avatar
Saloni Dattani
5d
Scientific Discovery

I just got around to reading this great piece by Kevin Blake, PhD on the discovery of penicillin.

For various reasons, including the one below, it seems very unlikely that penicillin was really discovered by accident – that it wafted in through a window and suppressed the growth of staphylococci. But what really happened is still a mystery.

Last, and most important: penicillin only works if it’s present before the staphylococci. Fleming did not know it at the time, but penicillin interferes with bacterial cell wall synthesis, which only happens when bacteria are actively growing.
Asimov Press
Apr 2
at
8:11 PM
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