WORLD OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY Florey, Howard Walter219•
Accolades followed for Fleming. He was elected to fel-
lowship in the Royal Society in 1943, knighted in 1944, and
shared the Nobel Prize with Florey and Chain in 1945.
Fleming continued working at St. Mary’s Hospital until 1948,
when he moved to the Wright-Fleming Institute. Fleming died
in London in 1955.See alsoAntibiotic resistance, tests for; Antibiotics; Bacteria
and bacterial infection; History of the development of antibi-
otics; History of microbiology; History of public healthFFlorey, Howard WalterLOREY, HOWARDWALTER(1898-1968)
English pathologistThe work of Howard Walter Florey gave the world one of its
most valuable disease-fighting drugs, penicillin. Alexander
Flemingdiscovered, in 1929, the moldthat produced an anti-
bacterial substance, but was unable to isolate it. Nearly a
decade later, Florey and his colleague, biochemist Ernst
Chain, set out to isolate the active ingredient in Fleming’s
mold and then conduct the clinical tests that demonstrated
penicillin’s remarkable therapeutic value. Florey and Chain
reported the initial success of their clinical trials in 1940, and
the drug’s value was quickly recognized. In 1945, Floreyshared the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology with
Fleming and Chain.
Howard Walter Florey was born in Adelaide, Australia.
He was one of three children and the only son born to Joseph
Florey, a boot manufacturer, and Bertha Mary Wadham Florey,
Joseph’s second wife. Florey expressed an interest in science
early in life. Rather than follow his father’s career path, he
decided to pursue a degree in medicine. Scholarships afforded
him an education at St. Peter’s Collegiate School and Adelaide
University, the latter of which awarded him a Bachelor of
Science degree in 1921. An impressive academic career
earned Florey a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University in
England. There he enrolled in Magdalen College in January- His academic prowess continued at Oxford, where he
became an excellent student of physiology under the tutelage
of renowned neurophysiologist Sir Charles Scott Sherrington.
Placing first in his class in the physiology examination, he was
appointed to a teaching position by Sherrington in 1923.
Florey’s education continued at Cambridge University
as a John Lucas Walker Student. Already fortunate enough to
have learned under a master such as Sherrington, he now came
under the influence of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who
taught Florey the importance of studying biochemical reac-
tions in cells. A Rockefeller Traveling Scholarship sent Florey
to the United States in 1925, to work with physiologist Alfred
Newton Richards at the University of Pennsylvania, a collab-
oration that would later prove beneficial to Florey’s own
research. On his return to England and Cambridge in 1926,
Florey received a research fellowship in pathology at London
Hospital. That same year, he married Mary Ethel Hayter Reed,
an Australian whom he’d met during medical school at
Adelaide University. The couple eventually had two children.
Florey received his Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1927, and
remained there as Huddersfield Lecturer in Special Pathology.
Equipped with a firm background in physiology, he was now
in a position to pursue experimental research using an
approach new to the field of pathology. Instead of describing
diseased tissues and organs, Florey applied physiologic con-
cepts to the study of healthy biological systems as a means of
better recognizing the nature of disease. It was during this
period in which Florey first became familiar with the work of
Alexander Fleming. His own work on mucus secretion led him
to investigate the intestine’s resistance to bacterial infection.
As he became more engrossed in antibacterial substances,
Florey came across Fleming’s report of 1921 describing the
enzyme lysozyme, which possessed antibacterial properties.
The enzyme, found in the tears, nasal secretions, and saliva of
humans, piqued Florey’s interest, and convinced him that col-
laboration with a chemist would benefit his research. His work
with lysozyme showed that extracts from natural substances,
such as plants, fungiand certain types of bacteria, had the abil-
ity to destroy harmful bacteria.
Florey left Cambridge in 1931 to become professor of
pathology at the University of Sheffield, returning to Oxford
in 1935 as director of the new Sir William Dunn School of
Pathology. There, at the recommendation of Hopkins, his pro-
ductive collaboration began with the German biochemist Ernst
Chain. Florey remained interested in antibacterial substances
Sir Alexander Flemming, the discoverer of lysozyme and penicillin.womi_F 5/6/03 2:15 PM Page 219