episode_0068

Episode 68. Fleming, Alexander Fleming (3)

****

I looked at Amy. The atmosphere was very different from Istina’s. Amy’s thoughts were a bit shorter, but she talked a bit more.

“As I said, structure and function. The fact that bacteria cannot grow around the blue mold in the culture dish is a diagram showing the blue mold monopolizing the resources that the bacteria could have taken.”

“Aha… … .”

“Do you know what I mean?”

Amy nodded, took out a scrap of paper, and wrote something down.

“Just a moment,”

“So, you’re saying that fungi create substances that kill bacteria in order to compete for resources with bacteria?”

Right. Amy scratched her head.

“Yeah.”

“I get the logic, but it seems like a leap of logic. It seems like there has to be a big difference between mold and bacteria for it to make sense.”

The fundamental difference between fungi and bacteria.

In fact, the reason why fungi produce substances that kill bacteria but don’t kill humans is because fungi are more similar to humans than bacteria.

Fungi and humans are eukaryotes, and bacteria are prokaryotes. Penicillin selectively kills bacteria by interfering with the synthesis of the peptidoglycan cell wall, which only bacteria have.

But how do you explain this?

Let me put it as simply as possible.

“Fungi are much more complex than bacteria.”

“That’s true.”

Let’s just wait a moment.

Since we prepared a thousand culture dishes, we should be able to produce at least one strain of the targeted blue mold. Then we can make penicillin.

And the next day.

Perhaps because it was summer, bacteria and mold grew a little faster than expected. We gathered to find our target in the culture dish.

I wish I could find it and clean it up quickly. I’m going crazy with the thousand petri dishes piled up.

“It looks like it’s almost fully grown?”

“Yes.”

“You just have to find a plate that doesn’t have any bacteria growing on it, or that has grown dirty. Maybe there are some.”

If you’re unlucky, there might not be any.

Since only a few out of hundreds of species of blue mold produce antibacterial substances, is it possible that the warehouse doesn’t have that species of blue mold?

Me, Istina, and Amy.

Three people began the sorting process. The strains that had no sterilizing power were thrown away as they were, and the strains that seemed to have grown less bacteria had to be separated.

I sighed when I saw the thousand stacked petri dishes. Will it take an hour?

I looked at Istina.

“There were a thousand culture dishes in the lab?”

“Yes. I went all the way to the warehouse.”

There really is a lot of this.

Istina shrugged.

I never ordered them to make a thousand. I never imagined they would prepare that many. Istina is really smart.

It might be better to finish this quickly when you have free time. Right now, there’s only one inpatient and no other tasks.

After sorting them for a while, Amy raised her hand like a gold digger who had found a piece of gold.

“Is this it?”

I looked at the petri dish. It seemed like there was less bacteria growing around the mold.

“I guess so? Put it aside.”

“Yes!”

30 minutes later, 995 petri dishes were placed in a trash can filled with bleach.

We grew a thousand strains of blue mold from a thousand pieces of bread, and only five of them were even slightly bactericidal.

“Okay.”

“Still, I found it.”

“What are you doing now?”

Now that we’ve found the golden goose, we just have to wait until it lays eggs. We have to grow the five strains of penicillin we just found.

“First, we will grow the strains whose sterilizing power has been confirmed on bread again. We will also repeat the experiment to confirm the sterilizing power in a culture dish.”

“Yes.”

“After publishing our research, we plan to share as many of the bactericidal strains we found as possible so that they can be studied.”

Istina tilted her head.

“Can’t I make money with this?”

“Will that work?”

There are, of course, ethical issues as well.

Even in the original world, it took 20 years to commercialize penicillin. It’s a bit much to delay medical development in order to make money after 20 years.

It felt like such a distant future.

anyway.

Next step. We prepared five bread baskets and put the mold on top. This will spread it among the bread.

So five baskets of bread were placed in the warehouse. This time, only the strains with sterilizing power. I put the baskets down and left the warehouse.

“Please wait a moment. Everyone worked hard.”

“Thank you.”

Thanks to Istina making a thousand at a time, the discovery of penicillin seemed to have been brought forward considerably. A few weeks from the original plan?

I’ll have a lot to talk about at the conference. How to grow blue mold, verify its sterilizing power, and even how to chemically extract penicillin.

****

The Academy’s bakery.

Annabeth looked at the professor who came to visit again today. A young professor who sometimes came with a student or showed up wearing a gown.

The professor sometimes buys cookies for his students. Sometimes his students come over. A few days ago, he bought a hundred morning rolls.

Annabeth used to think about it.

Why would you buy a hundred morning rolls? Of course you wouldn’t buy them to eat yourself.

Who are you buying a hundred of these for?

After a few days of this, Annabeth couldn’t hold back her curiosity and asked the professor directly. It was not long ago.

– Are you a professor? I guess you must have a good day, buying so much bread.

– Oh. Because I work at a hospital.

– okay……!

The professor left the bakery as if he was in a hurry. Actually, he didn’t usually talk at all. I think I only saw him exchange a few words with his students.

Annabeth thought about it some more. If she was a professor working at a hospital, she would naturally be a healer.

Isn’t buying a bunch of bread in the morning meant to be given to patients or hospital staff? Common sense would tell you otherwise.

It might have been distributed to hospital staff who were too busy to eat, or to poor people who had fallen ill from starvation.

I didn’t ask specifically, though.

Since the professor said he works at a hospital, it’s only natural that the bread would go to sick people or people who take care of sick people!

By all means, it was clear that the person receiving that bread was someone who really needed warm bread.

They say it’s used in hospitals. Annabeth, thinking about it, made the morning bread with special care.

If you work hard, can’t you change the world, even if it’s just a little? The hundreds of morning buns that the professor buys will definitely make hundreds of people’s days a little better.

Tiring-!

Today, too, the professor opened the bakery door and came in. Annabeth looked back to see if the bread was ready.

Judging by the smell of freshly baked bread and butter, it seemed to have just been made.

“Hello!”

The professor looked a bit busy today. He checked his wristwatch as soon as he came in. Are there a lot of sick people in the hospital?

“What is that? Give me a hundred morning buns.”

“Your disciple didn’t come with you?”

“That friend is busy too.”

Annabeth hurriedly divided the morning bread into paper bags. Since there were more than one or two pieces of bread, it took quite some time to pack them.

Annabeth hurriedly handed over the bread.

“Here it is.”

“Oh my, you’ve worked hard.”

“Yes!”

The professor left the bakery holding a loaf of bread. Only the smell of warm bread remained in the bakery.

Annabeth sighed in relief. You came again today, Professor. Thanks to you, the bakery’s sales doubled.

I hope the people who eat that bread are happy. I put extra butter in it because I was especially careful. I hope it makes their day a little bit better!

– Annabeth was thinking.

****

The bread bag had a strong buttery scent.

I took the bread and went back to the lab. Ten bags at a time. I had to go grow some mold quickly, since I had already found the problematic strain.

Now that we have the strain cleanly isolated, all we have to do is grow it well and distribute it to professors who are interested at the next academic conference.

I’m going to grow it, study it, or something.

Then that will work.

Amy sat on one side of the lab, looking at blue mold through a microscope. It was a nice effort, but what could she learn from it?

“Have you grown a lot?”

“Yes.”

Penicillin is invisible to the eye. It’s a good attitude for a researcher, but what exactly are you looking at?

“I was watching what the professor said.”

“Oh. What is it?”

“That. You said that molds have a more complex structure than bacteria, right? I saw that.”

right.

Fungi can survive in environments where bacteria cannot thrive by forming complex structures such as slime molds, mushrooms, and spores.

“Can I eat morning rolls?”

“What, that? Don’t eat it for a while. It’s bad if you confuse growing mold with eating it.”

Amy nodded.

“I guess so.”

“Where did Istina go?”

“I went down to the warehouse to look at bread.”

He’s having a hard time too.

“I’m going to teach you the concept of antibiotics in an upcoming class, and did you know that there’s a conference in Whitby this time? I’m going to present a paper there.”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Amy decided to go too?”

“Oh, yes. I want to go!”

That’s settled. I have to prepare for class, but should I take the mold with me? I don’t know if the strain will grow nicely by then.