1900: A physics genius wandering around Europe

Chapter 582 Even if you are given Penicillium, you still can't make penicillin! Science is full of coincidences and twists!

In later generations, artificial intelligence (AI) is in full swing and has become the most talked-about high-tech.

In the eyes of ordinary people, AI seems to be omnipotent and omniscient.

Write poetry, paint, program, and work; know everything from astronomy to geography.

So some people worry that one day in the future AI may replace humans or even enslave them.

Because compared to the fragile human body and brain, AI is extremely powerful and perfect.

However, humans have something that AI is far from being able to match at the moment, and it doesn’t even have the qualifications to commit fraud.

That is the wisdom based on the complexity of life.

From the single-celled paramecium to the most recent gorilla, life has become increasingly complex in form and function, and increasingly intelligent.

According to the most authoritative consensus in the current academic community, the intelligence level of AI is not even as good as that of Paramecium.

Any cell in nature is thousands of times more complex and sophisticated than AI.

Humans are now able to go into space and land on the moon and Mars.

But when it comes to the simplest cell, we still know very little.

The extremely sophisticated structures and various chemical reactions inside cells are full of infinite secrets.

If one day, humans can use a pile of scattered atoms to directly assemble a living cell.

Then, the human civilization at this time can definitely be called "Creator Civilization".

Therefore, although cells are small, they are the basic units of life.

Bacteria are a special type of cell.

It is the culprit causing many diseases in humans.

Such as infection, pneumonia, meningitis, tetanus and so on.

The cause of these diseases is the growth and proliferation of bacteria.

Since the discovery of bacteria, biologists have been trying every possible means to find a way to effectively kill bacteria.

From a formal point of view, there are two ways to kill bacteria.

The first is a physical method and the second is a chemical method.

The so-called physical methods include high temperature killing.

No matter how powerful the bacteria are, they will die if they are put on fire.

Therefore, when conditions are insufficient, doctors will heat scissors, tweezers and other tools over fire before using them. This is the same principle.

However, this method can only kill bacteria in the environment.

The bacteria inside the human body certainly cannot survive with high temperatures.

You can't burn people with fire.

Therefore, medical scientists hope to discover chemical drugs like aspirin to kill bacteria.

This type of chemical is generally called "antibiotics" or "antimicrobials."

In fact, before penicillin was discovered, medical scientists had already discovered many types of antibiotics, such as sulfonamides.

But these antibiotics have various disadvantages.

The sterilization effect is too weak, the side effects are serious, it cannot be made into medicine, etc.

These shortcomings prevent antibiotics from being used on a large scale.

Therefore, the research and development of excellent antibiotics has become a very hot topic in the field of bacteriology.

Penicillin is the first true antibiotic discovered and mastered by humans.

Its birth ended the era when infectious diseases were almost untreatable.

In real history, in 1927, a paper on the mutation of Staphylococcus aureus caught Fleming's attention.

Staphylococcus aureus, as the name suggests, is a bacterium that looks like grapes.

Because the bacteria secrete a yellow pigment, which makes the bacterial colonies look golden.

Staphylococcus aureus is the main cause of food poisoning and other diseases, and is widely present in the air, sewage, overnight food, human skin, etc.

The paper that Fleming read stated that after culturing Staphylococcus aureus on culture medium for 52 days, many mutant colonies would be obtained.

He questioned this and wanted to repeat the experiment to verify it.

So he extracted Staphylococcus aureus from the patient's abscess and then cultured it according to the method described in the paper.

But for some reason, he made a common sense mistake.

Instead of placing the culture medium in a constant temperature incubator at 37°C, he chose to place it directly at the window of the laboratory, which was equivalent to culturing it at room temperature.

I guess he felt he was just repeating someone else's experiment, so he didn't take it too seriously.

In this way, the Staphylococcus aureus culture experiment began.

Coincidentally, the college was on vacation at that time, so Fleming prepared to go on vacation.

The Staphylococcus aureus experiment would take more than fifty days, and he certainly wouldn't be there all the time.

However, when he returned from vacation, he had forgotten that he was doing the repeat experiment on S. aureus.

He almost wanted to wash the culture medium used to cultivate Staphylococcus aureus.

Fortunately, his former assistant Priss came to visit and asked him what he had been doing during this period.

Fleming then remembered that he was still growing Staphylococcus aureus on the culture medium in his hand.

So he picked up a piece of culture medium and prepared to explain it to Priss.

However, he was surprised to find that there was a green area in the golden culture.

Fleming exclaimed:
“Could this be a mutated mold?”

"But how can Staphylococcus aureus mutate into green mold?"

In that era, due to the simple equipment and other reasons, it was common for the culture medium to be contaminated.

Generally speaking, researchers don't care what kind of bacteria contaminated the culture medium, but simply throw it away and repeat the experiment.

But Fleming was doing a mutation experiment on Staphylococcus aureus, so he took a closer look.

Just with this one glance, he discovered another extremely strange phenomenon.

There is a circle of pale white area around the green mold.

As a professor of bacteriology, Fleming was very experienced and he immediately knew that the pale white area was actually the remains of the bacteria after they were killed.

In other words, this green mold can kill Staphylococcus aureus!

Fleming was delighted.

He accidentally discovered a new sterilizing substance!
So he quickly scraped out a little mold from the culture medium and observed it under a microscope.

He wanted to know what this magical mold was.

Observing through the lens, he, with his solid basic knowledge, immediately realized that the bacteria was Penicillium.

Fleming was even more confused now.

Penicillium was discovered a long time ago.

But there has never been any research to prove that it has a bactericidal effect.

Why can Penicillium kill Staphylococcus aureus on its own culture medium?
He couldn't figure it out for the time being.

However, he did not stop there, but cultivated a lot of Penicillium in the culture medium to see if it could kill other bacteria.

So he experimented with diphtheria, anthrax, streptococcus, pneumococcus and other bacteria in succession.

Without exception, all of these bacteria died after penicillin culture medium was added.

At this point, Fleming could determine that Penicillium did have a strong and broad bactericidal effect.

After two years of experiments, he published his research results as a paper entitled "On the Bactericidal Effect of Mold Culture."

Unfortunately, his paper did not cause much response.

After all, using one bacterium to kill another is meaningless to humans.

However, Fleming did not give up.

Over the next decade, he continued his research on Penicillium and made major breakthroughs.

He proved that the reason why Penicillium has bactericidal effect is because it can secrete a special substance.

Fleming named it "penicillin". Just when he was overjoyed, a series of failures hit him hard.

First, when he gave penicillin orally to guinea pigs, he experienced an extremely high mortality rate.

He then discovered that certain bacteria quickly developed resistance to penicillin and no longer died.

Moreover, penicillin is very difficult to extract, extremely unstable and difficult to preserve.

Fleming was immediately discouraged.

He believed that penicillin, like all previous antibiotics, had no practical therapeutic value.

So, in the end he sealed up all the research materials and stopped researching penicillin.

It was not until 1939 that two other scientists, Chain and Florey, became interested in Fleming's research.

The two men improved the penicillin experiment.

They found a better strain of Penicillium and greatly improved the purity and yield of penicillin, perfectly solving the various problems that Fleming had encountered at the time.

(This process is also very complicated.)
Then, due to the outbreak of World War II, governments around the world were in urgent need of antibiotics and were willing to invest heavily.

With the right time, place and people, penicillin was finally widely promoted and applied in clinical practice, becoming a miracle drug at the time, worth a fortune.

In the end, Fleming, Chain and Florey jointly won the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Looking back, Fleming was able to discover the bactericidal effect of Penicillium thanks to the following coincidences.

First, because he placed the culture medium for Staphylococcus aureus near the window, Penicillium spores of unknown origin had the opportunity to fall into the culture medium.

Second, he did not place the culture medium in an incubator at 37°C.

First, Penicillium is suitable for growing at low temperatures, while Staphylococcus aureus is suitable for growing at 37°C.

Secondly, Penicillium cannot grow on a culture medium filled with Staphylococcus aureus.

Finally, penicillin is only bactericidal against rapidly growing Staphylococcus aureus.

When Fleming conducted his experiment, the weather in London was very cooperative.

At the end of July, the weather was very cool, which was suitable for the growth of Penicillium but not for the growth of Staphylococcus aureus.

Therefore, Penicillium spores that fall into the culture medium can grow into Penicillium (the temperature is suitable and there are fewer Staphylococcus aureus in the culture).

After August, the temperature rises significantly, which is conducive to the rapid growth of Staphylococcus aureus.

Therefore, due to various coincidences, the lysis of Staphylococcus aureus by Penicillium occurred.

In many time-travel novels of later generations, the protagonist merely told the researchers that Penicillium had a bactericidal effect, and they thought that they could produce penicillin.

In fact, this is very unreasonable.

Maybe you have tried thousands of times, but still cannot meet the sterilization conditions for Penicillium.

At this moment, Li Qiwei watched Fleming drawing blood for him, and he finally understood the origin of penicillin in his mind.

He couldn't help but sigh that the development of science is sometimes full of surprises and twists and turns.

At this moment, a voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Professor Bruce, that's enough."

"The testing process will take about five days, and we will then send someone to deliver the results to the Quantum Research Institute."

Li Qiwei came back to his senses and said with a smile:

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Fleming, Mr. Freeman."

Then he turned to Wright next to him and said:
"Wright, I want to visit the laboratory here. Is that convenient for you?"

Wright was overjoyed when he heard this. He wished it would happen this way.

"completely fine."

"Bruce, I'll show you around myself."

"We also hope that you can give us some suggestions from the perspective of physics."

Li Qiwei smiled and said:
"No need, I've already troubled you a lot today."

"After all, a hospital is not any other place. I cannot delay your work time. I still have to focus on the patients."

"Let this Mr. Fleming accompany me on the tour."

Wright was stunned, then smiled:

"That's okay too."

"Fleming has a solid foundation of knowledge and will surely be able to meet your requirements, Bruce."

So, after exchanging pleasantries with Ridgway for a while, Wright took everyone away, leaving only Fleming.

At this moment, Fleming was very puzzled. He didn't understand why Professor Bruce chose him.

Li Qiwei looked at him and smiled:
"Mr. Fleming, I'm curious, how are you going to test my sample?"

Fleming heard this and said professionally:

"I will place your sample in culture medium first. If there are bacteria, they will grow."

“Then observe it under a microscope.”

“That way you can tell if you have a specific disease.”

Then he took Li Qiwei to his independent laboratory.

Fleming introduced various instruments and equipment as if they were his own treasures.

Li Qiwei was amazed by what he saw, which was completely different from how he was just looking at it blindly.

He majored in physics in his previous life and knew nothing about cell culture.

So he asked a question that he had been holding back for a long time.

"Mr. Fleming, Professor Wright just mentioned antibiotics."

"He said antibiotics were one of the most promising topics in bacteriology."

"But why can antibiotics kill bacteria but not normal cells in the human body?"

“How does it differentiate between the two?”

Wow!
Fleming was shocked when he heard this!
Professor Bruce is indeed extremely smart.

We have only been chatting for such a short time, but he has already raised such a profound question.

Fortunately, he knew the answer, otherwise it would be embarrassing.

"Professor Bruce, this is it."

"The outermost layer of normal human cells is the cell membrane, but bacteria have another layer of cell wall outside the cell membrane."

"Most antibiotics act on the cell wall and are harmless to the cell membrane."

"That's why antibiotics can kill bacteria with pinpoint accuracy."

Li Qiwei suddenly understood after hearing this.

"I see."

“Microbiology is really amazing.”

"So have you found a good antibiotic now?"

Fleming shook his head.

"Current antibiotics have various problems and cannot be used in clinical practice."

Next, Li Qiwei asked a lot of questions.

Fleming was becoming more and more alarmed.

"Professor Bruce's learning ability is really terrible!"

"I even feel like he's a bacteriologist now."

Li Qiwei smiled slightly, hiding his achievements and fame.

After the visit, Ridgway left St. Mary's Medical College with the farewell of Wright, Fleming and others.

Fleming suddenly felt a pain in his heart.

It seems like something most precious has been lost.

(End of this chapter)