Howard Florey had succeeded in hiring a world-class-trained (read:
German chemist) scientist who could help him investigate the biological
aspects of infection and immunity. He could not have found a better
colleague—Chain later wrote that his “principal motivating principle ...
was always to look for an interesting biological phenomenon which could
be explained on a chemical or biochemical basis, and attempting to isolate
the active substances responsible for the phenomenon and/or studying
their mode of action.”^10
Those who work in a research laboratory understand that research
meetings, usually held weekly, are the lifeblood of the investigative effort.
During that meeting, the lab director will ask for updates on specific
experiments, and will invite commentary from various members of the
team as to the meaning of the results. Unanticipated results are a major
area of focus, because they represent either possible failure or potential
new avenues of examination. Another occasional agenda item in the
weekly meeting is the consideration of a completely new area of
investigation, usually based upon a newly published article or podium
presentation. A fresh research prospect is scintillating to a lab that craves
a breakthrough, and sometimes the best spark for a new idea is to dig up
old research publications and dust off an inadequately explored concept.
The stories about the penicillin pioneers seem a bit apocryphal at times,
but in a well-remembered afternoon tea discussion among lab workers at
the Dunn, Florey and Chain discussed the dead-end paper of Fleming from
- While no research team had achieved success in investigating the
byproducts of Penicillium, it had been contemplated by Florey’s
predecessor, who had frozen away samples of the Penicillium and other
microorganisms as potential sources of antibacterial substances. So in
1937, one year after FDR Jr. had received his lifesaving sulfa medicine,
Florey and Chain began the nearly impossible task of efficiently growing
Penicillium and producing penicillin. The gauntlet was laid down to the
team: while it must be impossible to achieve, an inspired effort was
demanded if they hoped to perceive the mechanism of defense of the
fluffy-white mold. Impromptu or not, it was a lab meeting for the ages.
Norman Heatley was a contemporary of Ernst Chains in Cambridge, and
although he was a PhD scientist, his exceptional skill was in building
laboratory equipment out of random parts and castoffs, a second coming
of James Hooke. With the lab budget so severely limited (“to call the