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The first surviving records of the use of egg-white for its antibacterial and medicinal properties date back to ancient Greek and Roman societies. Dioscorides, the Greek physician, wrote in the 50-70 AD ‘De materia medica’ of egg-white as a medicinal salve for the eyes, a practice that has echoes across both ancient Roman, and traditional Sudanese practice also¹.

The first Italian Penicillin

24th May 1947 saw the establishment of SPA (Società Prodotti Antibiotici) by Pharmacologist Dr. Rodolfo Ferrari and microbiologist Carlo Callerio. Now Italy had its own domestic Penicillin, available in vials and tablets as SUPERCILLIN and PRONTOCILLIN.

Italy, 1947

We are in its second year as a Republic. The constituent assembly has written and voted to accept the new constitution, and President Alcide de Gasperi has formed a new government.

A nation’s entire supply of Penicillin

The death of their first trial patient through the insufficient supply of Penicillin drove Florey, Chain, and their research assistant Heatley forward with inspired momentum. Increasing production was an absolute necessity.

It is becoming ever more apparent that these key tools that modern medicine has come to rely upon are facing increasing risk to their efficacy. The UN General Assembly declared in 2016 that antibiotic resistance was the greatest and most urgent global threat, with a shocking 10,000,000 annual deaths projected by 2050 as a result of antimicrobial-resistant infections.

AVIDIN’s discovery came from the observation of dramatic biotin deficiency (Vitamin H, B7, or Co-enzyme R) in chicks fed a raw egg-white diet¹. The conclusion made was that this ‘egg-white injury’ resulted from a component in the egg-white withholding Biotin from the chicks, a finding since repeated in organisms ranging from ants to rats².

Father and Son Nobel Prize

This award is notable not only because it was the first and only time that a father-son duo has been awarded the Nobel but also because Lawrence was only 25 then. Indeed, he remained the youngest ever awardee until Malala Yousafzai’s (17) award for her work against the suppression of children’s education in 2014.

This gram-positive bacteria is particularly infamous for causing late blowing defects in cured, hard and semi-hard cheeses, dramatically reducing quality, rendering it entirely unmarketable. Cheese makers have been trusting Bioseutica’s® LYSOLAC® for over 30 years to naturally prevent late blowing, protecting their cheese and its commercial value.

Viticulture extends back to and coincides with the earliest settling of humans, ancient Persia being regarded as the first winemaking culture. From here (quite understandably), grape cultivation and winemaking spread, leaving traces across the southern Caucasus and into what is now Greece.

Methane emissions account for half of the 1oC rise in average global temperatures since the beginning of industrialisation. The considerable bright side is that methane is relatively short-lived in the atmosphere when compared to CO₂, so interventions that reduce methane emissions will have a rapid impact.

Whereas the elegant cube-like structure of salt (NaCl) was met with what was essentially disbelieving anger, Francis Crick famously asked at the 1965 public presentation of Lysozyme’s structure, “Could that be where the substrate polysaccharide binds?”.

The story of its discovery by Alexander Fleming is one of serendipity. For Fleming, it was not the fall of an apple, but that of mucous landing in a bacterial culture that revealed the efficacy of Lysozyme in rupturing the cell wall of bacteria. It is this powerful bacteriolytic effect that led to its naming.