Howard Florey

Howard Florey the Australian pathologist and pharmacologist (1898-1968) who led the team that turned penicillin from a laboratory curiosity into a usable medicine. With Ernst Chain and a group of colleagues at Oxford, he developed the methods of production and purification that made penicillin available to treat infections, and he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for that achievement.

Early Life and Education

Howard Walter Florey was born in Adelaide, South Australia, the son of a shoe manufacturer, and he was educated at St Peter's College and then at the University of Adelaide, where he studied medicine. He was a brilliant student and a gifted athlete, and he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he studied physiology and pathology.

He completed his medical training and then spent periods of study in the United States, including at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked on the physiology of the gastric mucosa and on the secretion of mucus. He acquired a wide knowledge of experimental technique and a conviction that pathology should be studied by rigorous experiment rather than by description alone.

He held academic posts in Sheffield and then Oxford, where he became professor of pathology in 1935. He built a strong department with an emphasis on the study of the mechanisms of disease, and he gathered around him a group of researchers including the biochemist Ernst Chain, who had fled from Nazi Germany.

The Oxford Penicillin Project

Florey's interest in natural antibacterial substances led him to begin a systematic study of the antibacterial substances produced by microorganisms. Chain brought to the project a knowledge of the biochemical literature, and he drew attention to Fleming's earlier paper on penicillin, which had been little noticed. The team decided to investigate it properly.

The central problem was to obtain penicillin in sufficient quantity and purity to test it in animals and then in patients. Working with improvised equipment and with the biochemist Norman Heatley, the team developed methods for growing the mould in shallow vessels and for extracting the unstable active substance by a process of solvent transfer that avoided destroying it. Heatley's technical contribution was essential to the success of the project.

In 1940 the team published results showing that penicillin cured mice infected with streptococci and staphylococci, and in 1941 they treated a human patient with a serious infection, with initial success. The supply of the drug was extremely limited, and the team resorted to recovering penicillin from the urine of patients so that it could be reused, a measure that illustrated the scarcity of the material.

Scaling Up for War

The therapeutic promise of penicillin was clear, but the quantity available was far too small for general use. Florey and his colleagues sought help from British industry and government, and when British capacity proved inadequate he travelled to the United States in 1941 to enlist American pharmaceutical companies and the support of the wartime authorities.

American firms developed deep-tank fermentation methods that greatly increased the yield of penicillin, and by the later years of the Second World War the drug was produced in quantities sufficient to treat large numbers of Allied casualties. The reduction in deaths from infected wounds and from diseases such as pneumonia was dramatic and was widely reported as a triumph of science in wartime.

Florey continued to supervise research on penicillin and on other antibiotics, including work on the isolation of the active principle and on its chemical structure, which was determined by others. He insisted that the drug should be available to patients regardless of nationality, and he supported efforts to make production widely accessible.

Later Career and Honours

After the war Florey was appointed to senior positions in Oxford and London, and he became a leading figure in British medical science. He served as president of the Royal Society, the first physician to hold that office, and he was involved in the establishment of the Australian National University, where he helped to found the John Curtin School of Medical Research.

He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 together with Fleming and Chain, and he was knighted and later made a life peer as Baron Florey of Adelaide, taking his seat in the House of Lords. He held honorary degrees and memberships from many universities and scientific academies around the world.

He continued to work on experimental pathology, including studies of the blood vessels and of the function of the lymphatic system, and he travelled widely to advise on medical research and education. He died in Oxford in 1968, and he was remembered as a scientist of great rigour and reserve whose organisational ability was as important as his experimental insight.

Influence and Legacy

Florey's leadership converted a neglected observation into one of the most important medicines in history. His insistence on testing the substance in infected animals and patients, and his success in enlisting industry and government to produce it, established a model for the translation of laboratory discovery into clinical practice.

The penicillin project demonstrated the value of multidisciplinary teams combining biochemistry, microbiology and clinical medicine, and it encouraged the systematic search for other antibiotics from natural sources. The Oxford laboratory became a model for the organisation of biomedical research in universities.

He is remembered as the driving force behind the development of penicillin and as a scientist of broad interests and high standards. Institutions in Australia and Britain bear his name, and his contribution is commemorated alongside that of Fleming and Chain as a turning point in the history of medicine and public health.

See also

• Penicillin
• Ernst Chain
• Antibiotic
• University of Oxford