Alexander fleming biography summary form

Scottish physician and microbiologist (1881–1955)

For other people named Alexander Fleming, see Alexander Fleming (disambiguation).

Sir Alexander FlemingFRS FRSE FRCS^[2] (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish physician and microbiologist, best known for discovering the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance, which he named penicillin.

His discovery in 1928 of what was later named benzylpenicillin (or penicillin G) from the mould Penicillium rubens has been described as the "single greatest victory ever achieved over disease".^[3][4] For this discovery, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain.^[5][6][7]

He also discovered the enzymelysozyme from his nasal discharge in 1922, and along with it a bacterium he named Micrococcus lysodeikticus, later renamed Micrococcus luteus.

Fleming was knighted for his scientifi