Peoria, in central Illinois, is the largest city on the Illinois River. This article is about how a laboratory in Peoria played a major role in World War II and beyond, and our story begins in the middle to late 1930’s in Great Britain.
The discovery of penicillin in 1928 by Scottish physician and microbiologist Alexander Fleming has been well documented. Dr. Fleming published his findings in 1929, but they were largely ignored until Dr. Ernst Chain, a Jewish immigrant from Hitler’s Germany to Great Britain, read of Dr. Fleming’s research in the later part of the 1930’s. During this period, Britain was preparing for war against Germany and scientists were searching for new treatments for battlefield infections – which actually killed more soldiers than bombs or bullets combined. He brought the research to his supervisor, Dr. Howard Florey at Oxford, and they agreed that penicillin warranted further research. The researchers received a Rockefeller Foundation grant and were able to show penicillin’s promise, however, they were unable to persuade the British government or private companies to underwrite their efforts. What was needed was a way to produce larger quantities of penicillin and finding little support in their own country they had to look elsewhere. Worn-torn Europe had little resources, manpower, and scientific wherewithal to approach with this project. Dr. Florey called the US. Department of Agriculture’s research laboratory in Peoria, where ways of putting surplus crops to good use were devised. The laboratory has since been renamed as the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR).
Two things were initially identified as necessary: a better fermentation process and a penicillium species to yield more penicillin. The fermentation process was greatly improved by using corn liquor in the fermentation broth. The search for the penicillium species proved more difficult. The order went out to members of the U.S. Army Transport Command to bring back mold extracts and soil samples from wherever they traveled around the world. Many hours of labor culturing organisms from decaying fruits, old cheeses, breads, meats and soil samples ensued. However, it was a mold from an overripe cantaloupe from a Peoria fruit market that eventually produced the “super” mold that would be the primogenitor for almost all of the world’s penicillin. By the time June 1944 arrived there was enough penicillin produced to treat up to 40,000 U.S. and British combatants. The German troops could only rely on the “sulfa” antibiotics which were less effective, had higher fatality rates, more amputations, and longer recovery times than penicillin treatments. The new drug became as indispensable in the Allied war effort as any weapon.
Another valuable medicine that was developed in the laboratories in Peoria was a drug called dextran: a polysaccharide produced by bacteria. It is a plasma expander used in incidents of major blood loss and was developed in time to be used in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. It is still used today in hospitals as a plasma expander from major blood loss. By the way, the bacteria
that produced dextran was found in a half empty bottle of root beer someone at the laboratory had failed to throw away.
Peoria and the scientists that worked at the NCAUR, along with the input from the British, took penicillin from a good idea to a practical medication used to save countless lives and developed dextran that saves lives from major blood loss.
Stay informed and stay healthy.
What do you think?