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Alexander Fleming

Also known as Sir Alexander Fleming

Scottish biologist, pharmacologist, botanist, and Nobel laureate (1881–1955)

AI overview

Alexander Fleming was a Scottish scientist who discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic, which revolutionized medicine by enabling doctors to treat bacterial infections that were previously often fatal. His discovery earned him the Nobel Prize and fundamentally changed modern healthcare, saving countless lives through the development of antibiotics.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine1945
“for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases”
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Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Alexander
Family name: Fleming
Gender: male
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Place of death: London
Occupation: inventor
Employer: University of London
Languages spoken: English language
Native language: English language
Field of work: immunology
Conflict: World War II
Image: Synthetic Production of Penicillin TR1468.jpg

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Commons category: Alexander Fleming
member of: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
date of birth: 1881-08-06
date of death: 1955-03-00
Commons gallery: Alexander Fleming
manner of death: natural causes
nominated for: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
name in native language: Alexander Fleming
place of burial: St Paul's Cathedral
cause of death: myocardial infarction
honorific prefix: Sir
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
P8168: Live at Last
writing language: English language
interested in: bacteriology

Sources (4)

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Encyclopedic overview

Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish physician and microbiologist. He shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain "for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases". This was the first antibiotic substance discovered. His discovery in 1928 of what was later named benzylpenicillin (or penicillin G) from the mould Penicillium rubens has been described as the "single greatest victory ever achieved over disease".

He also discovered the enzyme lysozyme from his nasal discharge in 1922, and along with it a bacterium he named Micrococcus lysodeikticus, later renamed Micrococcus luteus.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Alexander Fleming” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.