Today, I am thankful for the accidental discovery of a magic bullet.
The history of science is crowded with chance findings that have a positive effect on humanity and global health. We call these breakthrough advances by an unusual term – serendipity. The term references a Persian fairy tale written centuries ago, entitled The Three Princes of Serendip. In this story, this royal trio makes repeated discoveries, often by accident and in pursuit of a separate quest. Our history books are crowded with such coincidental discoveries that have fortuitously changed the course of the modern world. Today, we honor the occurrence of a serendipitous event that would change the course of medicine forever.
Dr. Alexander Fleming was a Scottish physician and surgeon who fought in World War I, at which time he was tasked with caring for debilitated soldiers suffering from horrible infected wounds. As there were not many effective antiseptic agents to treat these infections, he performed his fair share of amputations as a last-ditch effort to stem these infections. This harrowing experience had such a huge influence on Dr. Fleming that he dedicated the next 20 years of his career to looking for a cure that might prevent the complications of such horrible skin infections. He found himself analyzing the contents of various bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus).
Well, according to lore, Dr. Fleming had two interesting quirks: (1) he was a bit of an absent-minded professor; and (2) he relished his summer holiday breaks back in Scotland. Before leaving in July 1928 for a month-long vacation, he forgot to store away several Petri dishes growing staphylococci, instead leaving them on a bench in a corner of his laboratory. Upon returning from his summer sojourn on this exact date (Sept 15), he was surprised to discover that a few of the Petri dishes, which he inadvertently left at room temperature, were growing mold. What was more exciting was the finding that those dishes had a “zone of inhibition” around the mold that prevented growth of the S. aureus colonies. He rightfully surmised that the mold, which was Penicillium notatum, was producing a substance that hindered the growth of the bacterium.
Well, a few other scientists, including Ernst Chain and Howard Florey, would later read about his published findings and elucidate the structure of the fungal-derived compound a decade later. They called the newly found compound, penicillin. However, they struggled to mass produce it using P. notatum. In search of support, they travelled to the Department of the Agriculture, in the town of Peoria, Illinois, where experts had been studying methods to improve fermentation of various products. That’s when the second serendipitous finding occurred. One of their American colleagues working in the lab, Mary Hunt, found a cantaloupe at a local market covered in a pretty, golden mold. So, she bought it and brought it to their lab. They discovered that the mould was P. chrysogenum, and it yielded 200 times the amount of penicillin that Fleming’s mold produced. The age of antibiotic research was founded. A decade later, four pharmaceutical companies would collaborate to mass-synthesize the antibiotic for use during World War II. Its availability was heralded as an advantage that Allies would use to help ride to victory over the Axis powers. In turn, for their collective efforts, Fleming, Chain, and Florey would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945.
Antibiotics are regarded as the quintessential ‘magical bullet’ in modern medicine, a term first coined by the German biologist, Robert Koch, in 1900. Magic bullets are drugs that immediately hone in on their intended cellular targets. In the case of antibiotics, these medicines work by effectively attacking the components of a bacterial pathogen yet remain generally harmless to our own cells that comprise our healthy tissues. The availability of these marvelous agents permits us to perform modern surgery, treat cancer patients with chemotherapy, and even undergo organ transplantation. Since Alexander Fleming’s initial discoveryof penicillin in 1928, more than ten unique classes of antibacterial agents have been licensed, providing cures to microbial scourges that cause serious infections such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and blood stream infections.
Accidental discoveries, as in the case of Fleming’s penicillin, are often not simply a matter of chance. Rather, advances are made only if individuals are willing to appreciate these accidents for what they are. An investigator confronted by an unintentional observation must still recognize the importance of that singular occurrence of chance and act upon it to prove its scientific validity. As Louis Pasteur once proclaimed, “chance favors only the prepared mind.”Any serendipitous findings, once fully explained, then need to serve as building blocks to inform medical research going forward.
As I think about Fleming’s discovery, I’m left to ponder one vexing question: Should I really pester my son to clean up his room? Perhaps the next antibiotic that will transform the treatment of resistant bacteria is waiting to be discovered underneath his wet towel that lies on the carpet in his room.
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