27 October 2004
Penicillin pioneer commemorated in new University building
HRH Prince Philip will be visiting the University on Friday 29 October to open a new building dedicated to the memory of a Nobel Laureate who spent the early part of his career in the University of Sheffield and whose name is in inextricably linked with the wonder drug penicillin.
The Florey Building at Firth Court is to be named after Howard Florey, who was the Joseph Hunter Professor of Pathology at Sheffield from 1932 until his move to Oxford in 1935. Five years later, Florey and his colleague Ernst Chain became the first people to isolate and purify penicillin. In 1945 Florey and Chain, together with Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
During his Sheffield years, Florey worked in laboratories on the top floor of the north wing of the Firth Court building. The new Florey Building has been constructed on a site next to the north wing.
Accompanied by Professor Philip Ingham, Chairman of the Department of Biomedical Science, Prince Philip will meet students and staff in the Department who are working on the fundamental molecular mechanisms underlying the differentiation of cells into distinct tissues or organs in the zebra fish, Danio rerio, and the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. These studies are also giving important insights into human development, as many of the genes that control the specification and differentiation of the fruit fly and zebra fish bodies have their counterparts in higher vertebrates, including humans.
This research will aid our understanding of the genetic basis of diseases associated with aberrant development in humans, such as deafness, congenital heart disease, kidney disease and some cancers. In addition, it may create new and exciting opportunities for novel routes to drug discovery.
The Department's research is also a necessary prerequisite for the development of stem cell-based tissue replacement therapies, which hold great promise for the future treatment of human disease and injury, such as Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, brain trauma and deafness.
In the final part of his visit, Prince Philip will meet staff and research students who are studying the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying muscular dystrophy, hearing loss, asthma and arthritis. These diseases are being investigated through electrophysiological, molecular and genetic analysis of the ion channels, receptors, synaptic proteins and structural molecules that lie behind their pathology.
Notes for Editors: Prince Philip will be arriving at the Firth Court building at 9.40am and will be departing at 10.25am.
The world's first documented cure using penicillin was achieved not by Fleming, Florey or Chain, but by a member of staff in the University's Department of Pathology, Dr Cecil Paine, in 1930. Paine, a former student of Fleming's, obtained a culture of his penicillin-producing mould and proceeded to grow it on meat broth. He then used the crude penicillin filtrate to treat two babies suffering from serious eye infections, both of whom made a complete recovery. Paine then turned his attentions to puerperal fever, but his Royal Infirmary case notes have survived as evidence of his pioneer work.
Paine shared his findings with Florey after his arrival at Sheffield in 1932, but it was not until 1938 that Florey turned his attention to the isolation and purification of penicillin.
For further information: please contact Roger Allum, Director of Public Relations, on 0114 222 1033.
« Return to news releases
|
