The advent of penicillinThe advent of penicillin changed the world of medicine forever since its discovery with its ability to cure diseases, deadly at the time, which are now considered common and easily treatable. Penicillin was one of the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century, as antibiotics are now one of the most prescribed drugs in the world. Although its discovery is often described as serendipitous, the process by which it was cultivated was quite meticulous, and constant attention was paid to the further development of penicillin. It is because penicillin and its derivatives have played such a vital role in everyday medicine that it is such an important topic. Penicillin works by virtue of its beta-lactam ring that specifically binds to microbial enzymes in bacterial cell walls and keeps cell membrane structures from attaching. Eventually, if the bacterium continues to divide, the cell membrane will become increasingly weak and lyse. The beta-lactam ring is very simple in itself, but its ability to remain potent with several functional groups attached to it makes it spectacular in its applications.HR| |R---C---C---H| * |O==C---N---RAs has been noted previously, Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin was not as spontaneous as it may have originally seemed. The antibacterial effects of many molds had been observed numerous times previously, and Fleming was carrying out tests in this area and that of lysozymes during the 1920s. When he first noticed the antibacterial effects of the penicillium strain of bacteria in 1928, he thought they were not remarkable, although a further test... middle of paper... a practical form of the drug. This sparked a search in medicine for more antibiotics, however, this time scientists had to look away from the natural world. Although selective breeding and radiotherapy already give penicillin a storied history in biotechnology, the advent of new genetic engineering techniques that allow for the production of synthetic drugs have kept penicillin at the forefront of antibiotic treatment. Often the mechanism of action is always the same as regards the chemical structure. However, the means of production are much more efficient in terms of costs and evaluation of new strains of bacteria. These two qualities are highly desirable in the field since bacteria have the ability to rapidly mutate and render standard antibiotics ineffective. Bibliography: Biotechnology in Society, Dr. McClure, January-May 2000