Word: penicillium
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Penicillin In 1928 Canadian doctor Alexander Fleming, below, noted that Penicillium mold destroyed colonies of bacteria, proving that medicines could kill disease-causing pathogens inside the body. The true significance was realized in the 1940s when a powder form of the drug was made...
...lysozyme, extracted from body fluids. But when he looked at the dishes, Fleming noticed that the bacterial cultures within were dying off. The killer: "mold juice," as he called it, the product of spores that had probably wafted in from a lab downstairs. Fleming determined that the spores were Penicillium notatum and renamed the juice penicillin. However, it was a decade before other scientists took notice of Fleming's work, purified penicillin and turned it into a miracle drug. --By Michael Lemonick
Like some sort of biblical plague, toxic mold has been creeping through homes, schools and other buildings across the U.S. Although press reports have focused on stachybotrys, strains of aspergillus, chaetomium and penicillium have also triggered their share of grief. At least two families have burned their homes to rid themselves of the contamination. Thousands more, including antipollution crusader Erin Brockovich, are suing home builders, landlords and insurers for damages to their property and their health. Last month the California state senate approved the country's first mold bill, which would set standards for acceptable levels indoors and require home...
...start with medicine. In 1928 the young Scottish researcher Alexander Fleming sloppily left a lab dish growing bacteria on a bench when he went on vacation. It got contaminated with a Penicillium mold spore, and when he returned, he noticed that the mold seemed to stop the growth of the germs. His serendipitous discovery would eventually save more lives than were lost in all the century's wars combined...
...earlier work of Gerhard Domagk, who in 1935 showed that the injection of a simple compound, Prontosil, cured systemic streptococcal infections. This breakthrough demonstrated that invading bacteria could be killed with a drug and led to a fevered search in the late 1930s for similar compounds. Fleming's Penicillium notatum became the convenient starting point for Florey's team at Oxford...