287
16
the soldiers and later also for the civilian population. In 1945, Fleming, Chain and Florey
jointly received the Nobel Prize for Medicine
or Physiology.
The
penicillins
(. Fig. 16.15,
left)
chemically belong to the group of β-lactam
antibiotics, i.e. they contain a lactam
four-membered ring (see also 7 Sect. 14.2).
Only ten years later, Howard W. Florey
and Ernest B. Chain again looked after penicillin at Oxford University. The first successful clinical tests were carried out in 1941.
With the beginning of the Second World War,
research shifted to the USA: With the help of
new strains and industrial mass production,
sufficient penicillin was finally available for
. Fig. 16.14 Sir Alexander Fleming (1881–1955, left) and Robert Burns Woodward (1917–1979, right) (© Wikipedia)
N
S
HN
R
O
COOH
CH 3
CH 3
N
HN
C
O
R 1
O
S
COOH
CH 2
R 2
Penicillins
Cephalosporins
G: R =
V: R =
C: R
1 =
R 2 =
C 6 H 5
CH 2 C
O
C 6 H 5 O CH 2 C
O
CH
HOOC
NH 2
(CH 2 ) 3
O C
CH 3
O
. Fig. 16.15 Basic structures of penicillins and cephalosporins (with examples)
16.6 · Penicillins and Cephalosporins