Howard Walter Florey


Howard Walter Florey (September 24, 1898 - February 21, 1968) was a
pharmacologist who received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1945 for his
role in the extraction of penicillin.

Born in Adelaide, South Australia, Florey was a brilliant student (and
junior sportsman) who studied medicine at the University of Adelaide from
1917 to 1921. At the university he met Ethel Reed, another medical student
who was to become both his wife and his research colleague. A Rhodes
Scholar, he continued his studies at Oxford University (Magdalen College).

After periods in the United States and at Cambridge, he returned to Oxford
to lead a team of researchers. In 1938, working with Ernest Chain, he read
Alexander Fleming's paper discussing the antibacterial effects of
Penicillium notatum mould. His research team investigated the large-scale
production of the mould and efficient extraction of the active ingredient,
succeeding to the point where, by 1945, penicillin production was an
industrial process for the Allies in World War II.

Florey was elected president of the Royal Society in 1959. After the death
of Ethel, he married his long-time colleague and research assistant Dr.
Margaret Jennings in 1967. He died of a heart attack in 1968.

Florey is regarded by the Australian scientific and medical community as
probably its greatest scientist. Robert Menzies, Australia's longest-serving
Prime Minister, said that 'in terms of world well-being, Florey was the most
important man ever born in Australia'.