Penicillin development

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Who

Ernst Boris Chain, a German-Jewish biochemist who fled Nazi Germany in 1933, shared the work of turning penicillin into a usable drug with Howard Florey (Alexander Fleming had first observed the mould).

When

1938–1945

Where

Oxford, England

Penicillin, the first mass-produced antibiotic, saved millions of lives from bacterial infection. The biochemist Ernst Chain, a refugee from Nazi Germany of Jewish descent, led the Oxford team that isolated and stabilised the compound, and shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the achievement.

Part of “The Gifts of the Jews” — verified Jewish contributions to the world, with sources.