ALEXANDER FLEMING(1881-1995)
"Flemin
g was a Scottish bacteriologist and Nobel Prize winner, best known for his discovery of penicillin"Alexander Fleming was born in Ayrshire on 6 August 1881, the son of a farmer. He moved to London at the age of 13 and later trained as a doctor. He qualified with distinction in 1906 and began research at St Mary's Hospital Medical School at the University of London under Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy. In World War One Fleming served in the Army Medical Corps and was mentioned in dispatches. After the war, he returned to St Mary's.
In 1928, while studying influenza, Fleming noticed that mould had developed accidentally on a set of culture dishes being used to grow the staphylococci germ. The mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. Fleming experimented further and named the active substance penicillin. It was two other scientists however, Australian Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, a refugee from Nazi Germany, who developed penicillin further so that it could be produced as a drug. At first supplies of penicillin were very limited, but by the 1940s it was being mass-produced by the American drugs industry.
Fleming wrote numerous papers on bacteriology, immunology and chemotherapy. He was elected professor of the medical school in 1928 and emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of London in 1948. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1943 and knighted in 1944. In 1945 Fleming, Florey and Chain shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Fleming died on 11 March 1955.
In 1928, while studying influenza, Fleming noticed that mould had developed accidentally on a set of culture dishes being used to grow the staphylococci germ. The mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. Fleming experimented further and named the active substance penicillin. It was two other scientists however, Australian Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, a refugee from Nazi Germany, who developed penicillin further so that it could be produced as a drug. At first supplies of penicillin were very limited, but by the 1940s it was being mass-produced by the American drugs industry.
Fleming wrote numerous papers on bacteriology, immunology and chemotherapy. He was elected professor of the medical school in 1928 and emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of London in 1948. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1943 and knighted in 1944. In 1945 Fleming, Florey and Chain shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Fleming died on 11 March 1955.
ALFRED NOBEL (1833-1896)
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist and the inventor of dynamite, who established the Nobel Prize.Alfred Nobel was born on 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden. His father was an engineer and inventor. In 1842, Nobel's family moved to Russia where his father had opened an engineering firm providing equipment for the Tsar's armies. In 1850, Nobel's father sent him abroad to study chemical engineering. During a two-year period Nobel visited Sweden, Germany, France and the United States. He returned to Sweden in 1863 with his father after the family firm went bankrupt.
Back in Sweden, Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives. He was particularly interested in the safe manufacture and use of nitro-glycerine, a highly unstable explosive. Nobel's brother Emil had been killed in a nitro-glycerine explosion in 1864. Nobel incorporated nitro-glycerine into silica, an inert substance, which made it safer and easier to manipulate. This he patented in 1867 under the name of 'dynamite'. Dynamite established Nobel's fame and was soon used in blasting tunnels, cutting canals and building railways and roads all over the world. Nobel went on to invent a number of other explosives.
In the 1870s and 1880s, Nobel built up a network of factories all over Europe to manufacture explosives. In 1894 he bought an ironworks at Bofors in Sweden that became the nucleus of the well-known Bofors arms factory. Although he lived in Paris, Nobel travelled widely. He continued to work in his laboratory, inventing a number of synthetic materials and by the time of his death he had 355 patents.
In November 1895, Nobel signed his will providing for the establishment of the Nobel Prizes. He set aside the bulk of his huge fortune to establish annual prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. An Economics Prize was added later.
Nobel died at his home in Italy on 10 December 1896. He is buried in Stockholm.
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