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Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner is considered the inventor of modern vaccines. -
Jenner works to invent innoculation.
Edward Jenner was the first to spread the idea of vaccinations to the world. He focused on the disease smallpox, which has been around the human race since ~1500 BCE. Thanks to him and his colleagues, we don't have that disease any more today. He may not have been the first to invent innoculation, but as Francis Galton said, "In science credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not the man to whom the idea first occurs." -
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Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur is the person who came up with germ theory. -
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Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister is given the credit for realizing the penicilin mold could counteract bacterial infections. He also transformed the practice of surgery. -
Lister researches the connection between mold, and dissapearance of bacteria.
Joseph Lister is given most of the credit for realizing the connection between mold and the dissapearance of bacteria, although many ancient cultures used this idea non-scientifically centuries before. -
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Sir Alexander Fleming
Fleming was the person who discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic. -
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Elizabeth Lee Hazen
Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen worked together to create the antifungal/antibiotic drug Nystatin. Nystatin earned them ~$13 million, which they donated to the Research Corporation for the Advancement of Academic Scientific Study. -
The Pasteur Institute is opened, to teach about germ theory.
Germ theory was a revolutionary idea. It is the idea that diseases are caused by germs that can be passed from person to person. It is currently excepted as truth, but at the time, it was considered ridiculous by many. -
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Selman Waksman
Selman Waksman supposedly discovered the drug streptomycin, to treat tuberculosis. However, there is controversy about whether he copied the work of Albert Schatz. -
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Gerhard Domagk
Gerhard Domagk created the first commercially available antibiotic. -
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Howard Florey
Florey and Chain produced penicillin, to make it usable in hospitals. -
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Rachel Fuller Brown
Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazen worked together to create the antifungal/antibiotic drug Nystatin. Nystatin earned them ~$13 million, which they donated to the Research Corporation for the Advancement of Academic Scientific Study. -
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Ernst Boris Chain
Florey and Chain produced penicillin, to make it usable in hospitals. -
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Lloyd Conover
Conover, who is still alive today, was the inventor of the drug Tetracycline. This was the first drug that was created by genetically modifying something that formed naturally. -
Fleming prevents Staphylococcus with penicillium.
We have heard the famous story of penicillin. Fleming left his petrii dishes with Staphylococcus bacteria in them on his counter, when he went away. A few days later he returned and found something that would forever change history. One of the petrii dishes had a mold called penicillin in it, which was preventing the bacteria from growing! -
Prontosil is discovered by Domagk.
Prontosil was the first commercially available drug. Domagk researched its used in rats and rabbits, to prevent deadly diseases. -
Penicillin is manufactered widely by Florey and Chain.
We know that Fleming discovered penicillin, but he didn't have the resources to isolate it. Florey and Chain were two nobel scientists, that were able to isolate the mold, and use it on the first patient 14 years after it was discovered. -
Waksman makes Streptomycin.
Streptomycin is a drug which can treat tuberculosis, and other serious infections. There is controversy over whether Waksman truly created he drug, or whether he copied the work of Albert Schatz. -
Tetracycline is patented by Conover.
Tetracycline was the first antibiotic made by genetically modifying a natural drug. It quickly became the most prescribed medication in the U.S. -
Nystatin is patented to cure fungal infections.
Hazen and Brown worked together to create the antifungal/biotic drug Nystatin. It is interesting to note that the drug can be used to restore water damaged artwork from mold. -
SmithKline Beecham invents Amoxicillin.
The company Smithkline Beecham invented Amoxicillin, one of the most widely prescribed drugs ever. This anitibiotic is known for its "not very green footprint".
