Alexander Fleming

medicine · accidental discovery · antibiotics · bacteria

Messy lab genius. Fleming left a petri dish of bacteria on his desk before going on vacation in 1928. When he returned, he found that a mold called Penicillium had grown there and killed all the surrounding bacteria, which was completely unexpected.

The first antibiotic. Penicillin became the first antibiotic medicine ever discovered. Before this, doctors had no good way to fight deadly bacterial infections like pneumonia and infected wounds.

Nobel Prize winner. Fleming shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two other scientists, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, who helped turn his discovery into a usable medicine.

Changed medicine forever. Fleming's accidental finding has been called the greatest medical victory over disease in history. It paved the way for antibiotics that have saved millions of lives since then.

Scottish scientist. Fleming was born in Scotland and spent much of his career at St. Mary's Hospital in London, where the famous petri dish discovery took place.