Serendipity means a "fortuitous happenstance" or a "pleasant surprise"Horace Walpole 1754). It was made in reference to a Persian fairy tale about 3 Princes of Serendip (Ceylon) "who were always making always making discoveries by accidents and sagacity of things they were not in quest of".Serendipity had a role to play in many scientific innovations. Discovery of Penicillin and Microwave oven (Percy Spencer 1945) are 2 examples.
The days story is about the discovery of Penicillin aided by serendipity ans a chain of people with tenacity and good observation. However, the major credit went to the person who started it all, Sir Alexander Fleming who discovered Penicillin in 1928. When this 'careless' lab technician returned from a 2 week vacation a mold had developed on an accidentally contaminated staphylococcus culture plate. He also noticed that this mold had prevented the development of staphylococci. It had effects only against gram positive strains. He is reported to have said "One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on September 28 1928, I certainly did not plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or the bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did." Fleming stopped studying penicillin in 1931. Howard Flory and Ernst Chain continued the research at Oxford. The landmark work began in 1938 when Florey and Ernst Chain produced a series of crude fluid penicillin extracts. 50 mice which were seriously ill with staphylococcal septicaemia were promptly rescued in 1940.In 1942, Ann Miller became the first civilian patient to be successfully treated with penicillin
At that time the problem was of continuous availability of the drug. Albert Alexander police constable who was ill with staphylococcal sepsis responded well to penicillin but died after 5 days of initial improvement due to non availability of the drug. In 1941, Florey went to Peoria in the US with Heatley ( a biochemist) to study means of mass production of penicillin. They realized that Penicillium notatum would never yield desired quantities of Penicillin. Mary Hunt, a lab assistant picked up a cantaloupe at the market covered with a "pretty, golden mold".Serendipitiously the mold turned out to be Penicillium chrysogenum which would yield 200 times penicillin as compared to P. notatum. With mutation causing technologies and radiation, the yield of penicillin was increased 1000 fold.
The acid test for Penicillin came in the form of Second World War. If the drug was indeed good, the mortality due to sepsis should come down substantially. That is what exactly happened. The mortality due to sepsis as compared to the first world war (18%) came down substantially to 1 % during the second world war. Penicillin was made. It had come to stay.
The story has a not so good ending. In 1945, Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded the Nobel prize. Heatley was left out. In 1990, Oxford made up for this oversight by awarding Heatley the first honorary doctorate in its 800 years history.
Is there a word with the opposite meaning as serendipity? Yes, there is. It is called Zemblanity (William Boyd). It means "making unhappy, unlucky, and expected discoveries occuring by design". This term meaning an "unpleasant surprise" is derived from Nova Zembla, a cold, barren land with many features opposite to Serendip (Sri Lanka).
The search for the first antibacterial drug was greatly aided by Serendipity. It was not done for financial gains. Current research for newer antibiotics which is done keeping in mind the possible financial returns is rightly greeted by Zemblanity!
The days story is about the discovery of Penicillin aided by serendipity ans a chain of people with tenacity and good observation. However, the major credit went to the person who started it all, Sir Alexander Fleming who discovered Penicillin in 1928. When this 'careless' lab technician returned from a 2 week vacation a mold had developed on an accidentally contaminated staphylococcus culture plate. He also noticed that this mold had prevented the development of staphylococci. It had effects only against gram positive strains. He is reported to have said "One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on September 28 1928, I certainly did not plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or the bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did." Fleming stopped studying penicillin in 1931. Howard Flory and Ernst Chain continued the research at Oxford. The landmark work began in 1938 when Florey and Ernst Chain produced a series of crude fluid penicillin extracts. 50 mice which were seriously ill with staphylococcal septicaemia were promptly rescued in 1940.In 1942, Ann Miller became the first civilian patient to be successfully treated with penicillin
At that time the problem was of continuous availability of the drug. Albert Alexander police constable who was ill with staphylococcal sepsis responded well to penicillin but died after 5 days of initial improvement due to non availability of the drug. In 1941, Florey went to Peoria in the US with Heatley ( a biochemist) to study means of mass production of penicillin. They realized that Penicillium notatum would never yield desired quantities of Penicillin. Mary Hunt, a lab assistant picked up a cantaloupe at the market covered with a "pretty, golden mold".Serendipitiously the mold turned out to be Penicillium chrysogenum which would yield 200 times penicillin as compared to P. notatum. With mutation causing technologies and radiation, the yield of penicillin was increased 1000 fold.
The acid test for Penicillin came in the form of Second World War. If the drug was indeed good, the mortality due to sepsis should come down substantially. That is what exactly happened. The mortality due to sepsis as compared to the first world war (18%) came down substantially to 1 % during the second world war. Penicillin was made. It had come to stay.
The story has a not so good ending. In 1945, Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded the Nobel prize. Heatley was left out. In 1990, Oxford made up for this oversight by awarding Heatley the first honorary doctorate in its 800 years history.
Is there a word with the opposite meaning as serendipity? Yes, there is. It is called Zemblanity (William Boyd). It means "making unhappy, unlucky, and expected discoveries occuring by design". This term meaning an "unpleasant surprise" is derived from Nova Zembla, a cold, barren land with many features opposite to Serendip (Sri Lanka).
The search for the first antibacterial drug was greatly aided by Serendipity. It was not done for financial gains. Current research for newer antibiotics which is done keeping in mind the possible financial returns is rightly greeted by Zemblanity!
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