Howard Walter Florey

Sir Howard Walter Florey . Australian pharmacologist. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Summary

[ disguise ]

• 1 Biographical summary
  • 1 Education
  • 2 Work history
  • 3 Death
• 2 Studies and research achievements
• 3 Awards, titles, honors
• 4 Sources

Biographical summary

He was born in Adelaide , Australia on September 24 , 1898 and died in Oxford , England on February 21 , 1968 .

Education

His early education was at St Peter’s Collegiate School, Adelaide, after which he went on to the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1921 .

He was awarded a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford , leading to bachelor’s degrees in 1924 . He then went to Cambridge as a student of John Lucas Walker .

In 1925 he visited the United States on a Rockefeller fellowship for a year, returning in 1926 for a fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge , receiving his doctorate here in 1927 , this same year he was professor of special pathology at the University of Cambridge .

Work history

In 1931 he went to the University of Sheffield as professor of pathology and from 1935, to Oxford , here he observed the antibacterial activity of molds, already noticed before by Alexander Fleming .

He was made an Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1946 and an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1952 . In 1962 he was appointed Rector of The Queen’s College, Oxford .

During World War II , he was appointed Honorary Consultant in Pathology to the Army.

Florey was a contributor and editor of The Antibiotics (1949). He also co-authored a lecture book on general pathology and has had many published works on physiology and pathology.

Death

Sir Howard Florey died on 21 February 1968 in Oxford , England .

Studies and research achievements

In the early thirties he began to study Lysozyme, an antibacterial substance found in human saliva and tears, which was his original interest, but his interest moved to already known substances such as antibiotics. His work on penicillin was a result of this interest. He studied the possibility of using an antibiotic substance from the mold Penicilliumnotatum, in order to combat diseases of bacterial origin.

In 1939 he obtained financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation to study the possibility of using an antibiotic substance from the mold Penicilliumnotatum, penicillin , to combat diseases of bacterial origin.

In 1940 a report was published describing how penicillin had been found to be a chemotherapy agent capable of killing sensitive germs in the living body.

In 1941 , he managed to isolate penicillin in sufficient quantity to test its effects on the bodies of nine patients. The results were satisfactory. He successfully demonstrated the therapeutic effects of penicillin injected into veins or muscles, first in experimental mice and then in humans. Thereafter efforts were made, with government assistance, to secure sufficient quantities of the drug that was made for use in World War II to treat war wounds.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945 , along with Fleming and Ernst Chain , for their work in this field. Later he worked on other antibiotics, although most of his studies were related to other areas of experimental pathology, especially the lymphatic and vascular systems.

Awards, titles, honors

Dr. Florey has been awarded many honours, including the Lister Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons, the Berzelius Medal of the Swedish Medical Society, the Royal and Copley medals of the Royal Society. In 1948 he received the United States Medal of Merit and many others.

Appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1941 and ennobled in 1944 , he shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology with Sir Alexander Fleming and Ernst Chain .

He has been named Honorary Doctor by seventeen universities and is a member or honorary member of numerous scientific societies and academies in the field of medicine and biology.