FLORA (Florey), Howard W.

September 24, 1898, Mr.. - 21 February 1968
Howard Florey, the English pathologist and bacteriologist, was the third child and only son of Joseph Flory, prosperous shoe manufacturer from Adelaide (Australia), and his second wife, Bertha Mary (Uodhem) Flory. Although father F. before the First World War suffered from financial difficulties, grants have allowed the boy to become students of university schools of St.. Peter and the University of Adelaide. Since childhood, having experienced the desire to research, F. first carried away by chemo, but then switched to medicine. In 1921, Mr.. He received a Bachelor of Science. Brilliant scientific career, as well as the breadth of his interests, combining the sport with politics, let him get a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University. Upon arrival in England in 1922. He was enrolled in Modlin College.
Research F. at Oxford concerned the relationship between the nervous system and muscle fibers of the walls of small blood vessels. Working under the guidance of an outstanding neurophysiologist Charles C. Sherrshgtona EF. came to the conclusion that the understanding of the disease should be based on the notion of normal structure and functions of the organism.
Received the Oxford degree of Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts, F. continued studies at Cambridge as a Fellow John Lucas Waller. He worked with Frederick Goulendom Hopkins, studying the function of capillaries. Although F. was not a chemist and not go in the footsteps of Hopkins, he took over from an older comrade belief in the importance of biochemical methods to study the cellular functions and their disorders. This position is a scientific definition of the subject matter of further research.
In 1925, Mr.. F. was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship for Foreigners. His 10-month stay in the United States played an important role in future scientific career. The following year he returned to England and obtained a research fellow at the London Hospital and Cambridge. In the same year, F. married Mary Ethel Reed, who studied medicine in Adelaide, the spouses have a daughter and son. In 1927, Mr.. F. Cambridge received a Ph.D. for work on circulation.
Completed in 1928. study on mucus secretion, F. interested in the problem of resistance of the digestive tract to bacterial infections. From the literature, he learned about the opening of Alexander Fleming in 1921. antibacterial enzyme lysozyme. Preliminary study how secreted and what functions are performed by lysozyme in the human body, F. came to the conclusion that to achieve this goal he needed help chemists. Although at the time he did not have the means to implement the joint project, the thought of him never left F. in the next few years. F. remembered well remembered the words of Albert Szent-GyцІrgyi, spoken to him in 1929. Cambridge. He noted that the 'biochemical methods were then sufficiently well developed to implement the extraction of any of the naturally occurring substance in the presence of the rapid test on its definition. "
In 1932, Mr.. F. moved to Sheffield University, where he held the post of Head of Department of Pathology. Two years later he became a professor of pathology, director of the Oxford School of Pathology Williams Dunn. Through this position, he acquired a position which enabled him to organize the study of pathology at Oxford, in the direction, prompted by Sherrington and Hopkins: with emphasis on the physiology and biochemistry. F. asked Hopkins to recommend someone to the post of head of the department of biochemical studies. Hopkins proposed the candidacy of one of his graduate students - Ernst B. Chesha, who joined F. in Oxford in 1935
Enthusiast and hardworking people, Cheney was able and original thinker chemist. U V. was undeniable talent, directing the work of other researchers, to choose the most promising direction. This gift, combined with the energy Cheyne led to the friendly and fruitful cooperation. Later, however, because of irreconcilable differences Union collapsed. Soon after, as Cheyne moved to Oxford, F. invited him to do biochemical studies of lysozyme. Completion of this enzyme in 1938, Cheyne interested in anti-microbial substances in general. Reading the best I could find on the subject, he came across the original Fleming story for 1929. of penicillin.
Discovered penicillin by luck and talent of the observer, Fleming took up other studies, since the drug differed chemically unstable and could be obtained only in small quantities. Production of penicillin in an amount sufficient to conduct serious research, require the joint efforts of specialists of a number of disciplines. This was a group of researchers, as if specially designed to ensure that it led F.
Project for the Study of penicillin was carried out in three stages. The first was to overcome the main difficulties in obtaining sufficient quantities for further studies of penicillin. In 1939 ... 1940. F., . Cheney and their colleagues were engaged in finding new methods for growing large quantities of mold genus Penicillium, . worked out the conditions, . in which the mold fashioned penicillin, . and techniques for the extraction and purification of active antibiotic,
. In the successful implementation of this phase a special merit of the biochemist Norman G. Heatley, who had a unique talent for design and construction of laboratory equipment.
. Work on the second phase of the project began in May 1940, when finally managed to get as much crude penicillin, which became possible to test its effect on infected mice
. While scientists already knew, . antibiotic that destroys bacteria in the cups with cultures, . without damaging the healthy tissues of the body of mammals, . Even F., . distinguished by the utmost restraint and not fond of lavish praise, . was shocked by the results, . remarking: 'It's like a miracle',
. The first clinical trials in early 1941. confirmed the results of experiments on animals: penicillin proved to be much more effective and much less toxic than any other known antibiotics.
. The Second World War, the outbreak of the time in Europe, is strongly dictated by the urgent need for penicillin, but to implement the production of required quantities of the drug in wartime Britain was impossible
. In June 1941. F. and Heatley went to the United States, in order to initiate the third stage of the project. Washington F. discusses the possibility of industrial production of penicillin from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and several pharmaceutical firms. The decision of Americans to hurry up with this case played no small role and a recommendation. Newton Richards, with whom P. worked in Pennsylvania in 1926. Now Richards, head of the Committee for Medical Research at the Bureau of Research and Development of Science of the United States. He supported the proposal F. and helped convince the U.S. government has allocated huge amount for the project. As a result, the time of landing troops in Normandy in 1944. American pharmaceutical laboratories were able to produce penicillin in sufficient quantities for the army.
Get production of penicillin in the United States, F. at the end of 1941. returned to England. He and his wife had a serious test to determine the best methods of testing antibiotic. After the publication of the second report on these tests, the London 'Times' printed an editorial, describing it without mentioning the names of the Oxford Research. Former coach Fleming Elmrot Wright said in a letter to the newspaper, that honor belongs to the opening Fleming. When the interview with the latter appeared in the press, one Oxford professor informed the 'Times' about the merits of the group F. Sam F. refused to meet with reporters and forbade anyone from their staff to communicate with the press. According to VF, ads hurt the scientists and their cases.
F. shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1945. with Cheney, and Fleming 'for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases'. In his Nobel lecture F. focused on new methods of investigation of antibacterial substances and the prospects of their study. In discussing the practical aspects of such studies, he noted that 'they are complemented by an important theoretical aspects. For the chemist is studying the structure of matter - often quite unusual type '. 'If you look at these issues more broadly - he continued - a clear identification of antibacterial agents, we can better present this process of endless struggle for existence which everywhere are microscopic organisms'.
. After the war, F
. continued work on antibiotics, the most successful of which were cephalosporins. He also returned to his early enthusiasms structure and function of small blood vessels and with an electron microscope expanded the borders of their research to the extent permitted limits of technical capacity 20-ies.
In 1960, Mr.. F. was elected president of the Royal Society, the supreme body of British science. A bright, articulate and strong-willed man, he continued to use his outstanding leadership. Over the five years that the F. as president of the Royal Society has been radically transformed, the number of members increased, and the headquarters moved. It has become more involved in government decisions, and in society in general. For his services to medicine F. in 1944. was awarded the noble title, and in 1965. received a life peerage and the Order of Merit.
Ethel Florey, his youth does not enjoy good health, died in 1966, and next year EFS. married on the physiology of Margaret Jennings, with whom he worked from 1936. Umer F. a heart attack on Feb. 21, 1968
The award-winning Mister commemorative medal of the Royal College of Surgeons (1945), the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (1957) and Gold Medal Lomonosov Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1965), F. was awarded honorary degrees from many universities and membership of numerous professional societies.