The discovery of penicillin was undoubtedly one of the most important scientific discoveries in recent history. However, despite penicillin being highly influential to modern medicine; penicillin was discovered accidentally. It was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, when after arriving back to his London laboratory from a two-week vacation he noticed there was a zone around an invading fungus on an Agar plate; in which the bacteria did not grow. After examining the mould, he noticed that it belonged to the Penicillium genus, and called the active agent penicillin. Upon examination of the mould he noticed that penicillin had an antibacterial effect on staphylococci (the bacteria in the Agar plate).
Despite Fleming discontinuing penicillin studies in 1931, studies of penicillin were completed by Howard Florey and Ernest Chain, two researchers of Oxford University. Then in 1940, with the help of Norman Heatley, who was able to extract penicillin from large volumes of filtrate from the fermentation vessels, Florey was able to carry out crucial experiments on penicillin. The experiments showed that the experimental penicillin, made from their production and purification process, had sufficient potency to protect organisms form Streptococci; a type of bacteria. In conclusion I believe that penicillin is one of the most important recent scientific discoveries, because of how influential it was in changing how we treat infections. The fact that penicillin was discovered accidentally highlights how a scientific breakthrough can occur at any point and scientists should never give up. The antibiotic resistance crisis highlights how dangerous a world without antibiotics is, and thus shows how important of a discovery penicillin was and will continue to be in the future.