Flory, howard walter

Howard Flory was born in Adelaide in South Australia in 1898. He was the youngest of three children and the only son ^[5] . His father, Joseph Flory, was an English immigrant, and his mother, Bert Mary Flory, was a third-generation Australian. ^[6]

Howard Flory was educated at Kira College's private high school (now ), and then , where he had brilliant successes in both school and sport. He studied medicine at the University of Adelaide from 1917 to 1921. At university, Flory met Ethel Reid (Mary Ethel Hayter Reed), a medical student, who later became his wife and research colleague. The marriage was unfortunate due to Ethel's poor health and Flory intolerance ^[7] . Flory continued his studies at in Oxford with a Rhodes scholarship , receiving a bachelor's and master's degree . In 1926, he entered College, Cambridge, and a year later received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge .

After graduating from Cambridge, Flory was assigned to the Department of Pathology of Joseph Hunter at the University of Sheffield in 1931. In 1935, he returned to Oxford as a professor of pathology and a member of Lincoln College at Oxford , leading a research team. In 1938, while working with Ernst Chain, and Edward Abraham , he read an article by Alexander Fleming discussing the antibacterial properties of Penicillium notatum mold. In 1941, he and Cheyne watched the condition of his first patient, , who had a small sore in the corner of his mouth that spread over his face over time, leading to a serious infectious disease caused by streptococci and staphylococci . ^[8] His face, eyes and scalp were so swollen that he had to remove his eye to relieve the pain. While he was given penicillin, Albert was recovering. However, the researchers did not have enough antibiotic for a complete cure, and the patient was not saved. Because of this sad experience and difficulties with the production of penicillin, scientists decided to treat children with penicillin, since this required a smaller amount. The Flory research team developed mold production on an industrial scale, as well as increasing the efficiency and completeness of extracting the active ingredient, and by 1945, penicillin was widely used by the Allies in World War II. However, Flory stated that the project was initially driven solely by scientific interests, and the medicinal property was a sudden discovery. ^[9]

Sometimes people think that we worked on penicillin because we wanted to save humanity from suffering. I don’t think it ever occurred to us. It was an interesting scientific exercise, and the fact that this discovery was useful to medicine, of course, is very pleasant, but it was by no means the reason for the beginning of this work.

- Howard Flory

The development of penicillin was a team work, otherwise it simply could not be.

- Howard Flory

In 1945, Flory received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ^[10] together with Ernst Chain and Alexander Fleming. Fleming first observed the antibiotic properties of molds that contain penicillin, but it was Cheyne and Flory who began to treat them with people. ^[11] In 1958, Flory opened the . In 1965, the Queen awarded him the title of Lord, and he became Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU) ^[12] , which he remained until his death in 1968.

On July 18, 1944, Flory was appointed a knight-bachelor .

On February 4, 1965, Sir Flory became a life peer and baron from Adelaide, South Australia, the Commonwealth of Australia, and Marston in Oxfordshire . ^[13] It was an even greater honor than the chivalry awarded to the pioneer-discoverer of penicillin, Sir Alexander Fleming. Fleming recognized the importance of the work Flory did. The produced penicillin helped save millions of lives in the war, even though Fleming himself doubted the possibility of this.

• 1941 - Membership in the Royal Society
• 1945 -
• 1945 - Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 1946 - Alberta Medal (Royal Society of the Arts)
• 1946 - Honorary Doctorate . ^[14]
• 1947 - Gold Medal of the Royal Medical Society ^[15]
• 1951 - Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London ^[16]
• 1957 - Copley Medal
• 1958 - Presidency of the Royal Society
• 1960 - William Exner Medal
• 1962 - Queens College Oxford Rector
• 1963 - Membership in the US National Academy of Sciences ^[17]
• 1965 - The Great Gold Medal named after M.V. Lomonosov from the USSR Academy of Sciences
• 1965 - John Scott Medal
• 1965 - Order of Merit ^{[18] [19]} .
• 1966 - Foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences ^[20] .

Although Fleming received the lion's share of public recognition for the discovery of penicillin, it was Flory who conducted the first clinical trials of penicillin in 1941 at in Oxford over the first patient, a constable from Oxford.

It is estimated that Flory’s discoveries, along with the discoveries of Alexander Fleming and Ernst Chain, saved more than 200 million lives, ^[21] and therefore he is considered one of the greatest figures in the Australian scientific and medical community. Sir Robert Menzies , Australia ’s Prime Minister for the longest time in Australian history, said: “Flory has made more prosperous than any other people who have ever been born in Australia for world well-being.” ^[22]

Lecture audience at the School of Medical Research. John Curtin was named after Flory during his lifetime. In 2009, the International Astronomical Union named Flory a crater in the North Pole of the Moon . A is named after Walter Flory. $ banknotes with a portrait of Flory were printed for 22 years (1973-95), and a flory suburb in the Australian Capital Territory was named after him. He was also named after the , a member of the University of Melbourne , Victoria , as well as the largest lecture hall in the medical school of the University of Adelaide . In 2006, the Australian federal government renamed the Australian Student Award for Distinguished High School Graduates the “Lord Flori Student Award” in recognition of it. In honor of Flory, the department at the medical faculty of the University of Sheffield is named.

After the death of his first wife, Ethel Flory married in 1967 his long-time colleague and research assistant (1904-1994). Flory died of a heart attack in 1968 and was honored with a memorial service at Westminster Abbey in London. Flory was an agnostic ^[23] .

Penicillin: The Magic Bullet is a 2006 Australian cinema created by Gordon Glenn and funded by the Film Finance Corporation and Arcimedia Productions in conjunction with Film Victoria. ^[24] . Breaking the Mold is a historical drama from 2009 that talks about the development of penicillin in the 1930s / 40s by a group of scientists in Oxford, led by Flory at the Dunn School of Pathology. Film stars Dominic West (as Flory), and ; directed by Peter Hoar, screenwriter .

• Flory (Florey) Howard Walter // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [30 p .] / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov . - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.

• Howard Walter Flory Biography
• Howard Flory's biography on the Nobel Committee website .
• Howard Flory's Nobel Lecture .