- Person
- Ernst Chain
- Lived
- 1906–1979
- Field
- Biochemistry
- From
- German-British
The story
From 1936 Howard Florey ran the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford, where he deliberately recruited scientists from different disciplines. Among his first hires was Ernst Chain, a Jewish biochemist who had fled Berlin in 1933, recommended by Frederick Gowland Hopkins at Cambridge. In 1938 the two decided to study antibacterial substances made by micro-organisms, among them penicillin, which Alexander Fleming had described about a decade earlier but which most scientists regarded as too unstable to be useful.
Chain and his colleague Edward Abraham found a way to purify and concentrate penicillin. In March 1940 a toxicity test showed it was safe in mice, and on 25 May 1940 a crucial experiment showed that it could save mice infected with deadly streptococci. Tests on hundreds more mice followed through the summer. By then the Second World War had engulfed Europe, and better ways to fight infection were urgently needed.
On 24 August 1940 Florey and Chain reported their findings in The Lancet. According to the Science History Institute, the article electrified research groups around the world that were searching for cures for bacterial disease, and the military importance of a better weapon against the infections that had devastated armies in past wars was immediately recognised.
Within months the team began testing penicillin in people. In January 1941 a woman with untreatable cancer agreed to test its safety; a feverish reaction turned out to be caused by impurities, which Abraham identified. In February a policeman became the first patient with an infection to be treated with penicillin in the hope of a cure. He improved at first, but the supply ran out before he could be saved, and Florey vowed always to have enough to complete a treatment.
Producing more became the overriding task. The Oxford team grew mould in laboratory flasks, hospital bedpans and hundreds of specially made ceramic pots. In July 1941 Florey and Norman Heatley flew to the United States to seek help, and at its height the British-American penicillin effort involved thousands of people and some 35 institutions. The Lancet paper had set in motion the work that made penicillin available to soldiers and then to civilians everywhere.
Why it matters
The Lancet paper launched the worldwide effort to produce penicillin, transforming the treatment of infections from pneumonia to infected wounds.
About Ernst Chain
Berlin-born Jewish refugee biochemist who purified penicillin with Howard Florey at Oxford, turning Fleming’s curiosity into a life-saving drug, and shared the 1945 Nobel Prize.
More about Ernst Chain
- Ernst Chain proposed penicillin's beta-lactam ringIn 1942 Ernst Chain and Edward Abraham proposed that penicillin contains a beta-lactam ring, a structure Dorothy Hodgkin confirmed by X-ray crystallography in 1945.
- Ernst Chain founded biochemistry at Imperial CollegeAfter building a research centre in Rome, Ernst Chain returned to Britain in 1964 to found Imperial College London's biochemistry department, specialising in fermentation technology.
- Four mice that launched the antibiotic ageOn May 25, 1940, the Oxford team infected eight mice with streptococci and treated four with penicillin. Sixteen and a half hours later only the treated mice were alive.
- Ernst Chain worked out how to purify penicillinAt Oxford, Ernst Chain and Edward Abraham found a way to purify and concentrate penicillin, turning Fleming's fragile mould juice into a usable drug.
Sources
- Howard Walter Florey and Ernst Boris Chain Science History Institute
- Ernst Boris Chain Wikipedia
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