Antibiotic penicillin led to renewed interest in the search for antibiotic compounds with similar efficacy and safety. For their successful development of penicillin, which Fleming had accidentally discovered but could not develop himself, as a therapeutic drug, Chain and Florey shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Fleming. Florey credited Rene Dubos with pioneering the approach of deliberately and systematically searching for antibacterial compounds, which had led to the discovery of gramicidin and had revived Florey's research in penicillin. In 1939, coinciding with the start of World War II, Dubos had reported the discovery of the first naturally derived antibiotic,
Antibiotic sensitivity antibiotic sensitivity testing offered as one combined service. This is because the clinician needs to know which organism is causing the infection, and which drugs will specifically work against this strain. Jump up ^ http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/bugdrug/antibiotic_manual/bk.html Jump up ^ http://www.slideshare.net/doctorrao/antibiotic-sensitivity-testing-presentation Jump up ^ http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/11/1749.full Jump up ^ http://www.microrao.com/micronotes/antibiotic.pdf Antibiotic sensitivity Antibiotic sensitivity or antibiotic susceptibility is the susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics. Because susceptibility can vary even within a species (with some strains being more resistant than others), antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) is usually carried out to determine which antibiotic will be most successful in treating a bacterial infection in vivo.