A new gallery charts the rise and fall of the first wonder drug.
Matt Brown
“Everyone’s heard of penicillin,” says Robert Bud, curator of a new exhibition about the antibiotic. “It was the drug of the 20th Century, and a focal point for the successes of biotechnology.”
As well as extolling its virtues, Bud is quick to point out the drug’s failings too. His book, Penicillin: Triumph and Tragedy charts the decline of antibiotics from the heady days of the early fifties, when penicillin was trumpeted as a miracle cure, to these more careful times of bacterial resistance and MRSA superbugs. It’s a story repeated to good effect around the walls of this temporary exhibition.
A great hope, and a slippery slope
Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. It revolutionized the treatment of bacterial infection, saving many lives in the Second World War. The exhibition shows how the drug was celebrated at the Festival of Britain in 1951, and even featured on postage stamps as one of the great British inventions set to deliver a happier post-war future. Fleming is portrayed as a celebrity, appearing in documentaries and on the cover of Time magazine.
The honeymoon period lasted just over a decade, as bacteria resistant to penicillin soon began to emerge. The gallery recounts the ‘Asian flu’ pandemic exactly 50 years ago, in which a resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus contributed to two million deaths worldwide. As a consequence, the search for new and better drugs was ramped up.
The answer seemed to lie in tweaking penicillin’s structure. For a time this worked, yielding ampicillin, methicillin, amoxicillin and many more; a litany of variations on the original drug. The exhibition goes into some detail about the theory and techniques used to discover these alternate structures.
But the new drugs led to new dangers. Antibiotics were prescribed too readily, and the population became unwitting incubators for resistant strains. The fresh generation of semi-synthetic medicines became less effective. People began to wonder about wonder drugs.
Moulds, models and machinery
It’s a compelling story. But how can it be told in a gallery setting? After all, penicillin is not the most eye-catching of exhibits. “Well, yes, it was a challenge,” says Bud. “But we are fortunate to have three very significant artefacts.”
A 1957 fermentor used for production of semi-synthetic penicillins.
A sample of Penicillium mould from Alexander Fleming’s laboratory opens the gallery. Elsewhere, visitors can see a molecular model of penicillin by Dorothy Hogkin, who solved the structure in 1945. The centrepiece is a 300 litre fermentor from 1957. The apparatus was used by Beecham Pharmaceuticals to produce early semi-synthetic penicillin derivatives, such as methicillin.
Dorothy Hodgkins’ 1945 model of penicillin.
The final wall of the gallery examines MRSA, and the shift in attitudes towards antibiotics. While pharmaceutical research continues, public faith in wonder drugs has receded. Doctors are now more cautious in their prescription of antibiotics, and patients have a responsibility to use them sensibly, to help prevent the rise of drug-resistant strains. As Bud observes, “Rather than the public saying to the doctors and drug companies ’it’s your job’, today we all have to say ’it’s our job’.”
The Penicillin exhibition can be seen at the Science Museum until 15 September 2007.