History of penicillin History of penicillin The history of penicillin follows a number of observations and discoveries of apparent evidence of antibiotic activity in molds before the modern isolation of the chemical penicillin in 1928. There are anecdotes about ancient societies using molds to treat infections, and in the following centuries many people observed the inhibition of bacterial growth by various molds. However, it is unknown if the species involved were "Penicillium" species or if the antimicrobial substances produced were penicillin. The Scottish physician Alexander Fleming was the first to suggest that a "Penicillium" mold must secrete an antibacterial substance, and the first
Penicillin by Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, who was also working at Oxford. She later received the Nobel prize for this and other structure determinations. Chemist John C. Sheehan at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) completed the first chemical synthesis of penicillin in 1957. Sheehan had started his studies into penicillin synthesis in 1948, and during these investigations developed new methods for the synthesis of peptides, as well as new protecting groups—groups that mask the reactivity of certain functional groups. Although the initial synthesis developed by Sheehan was not appropriate for mass production of penicillins, one of the intermediate compounds in Sheehan's