Where do antibiotics like penicillin actually come from?
Many antibiotics are made BY microbes to fight other microbes.
Many antibiotics are made BY microbes to fight other microbes. Penicillin, the first antibiotic, is produced by the mould (fungus) Penicillium, discovered by Alexander Fleming when it killed bacteria on a culture plate. We now grow such microbes in large fermenters to mass-produce antibiotics. So it's microbes, not factories of pure chemistry, that give us many of our life-saving medicines.
Key point
Penicillin is produced by the fungus Penicillium; many antibiotics come from microbes.
Common mistake
thinking antibiotics are purely synthetic lab chemicals.
Memory tip
microbes make antibiotics to fight rivals — we harvest them (e.g. Penicillium).
Tap to watch or see it right here — the app stays open (it only opens a quick search if nothing embeddable is found).