
The revolution in pha rmacot hera py: from herbs to pills, moulds, antibodies to genetic tools

Medicine started with tender loving care, then with herbs such as foxglove as described by William Withering in 1784, and then moved to mould juice in 1928 when Alexander Fleming, at St George’s Hospital, discovered that fungal mould of the strain Penicillium rubens inhibited bacterial growth and eventually led to the mass produc- tion of the powerful antibiotic penicillin during the closing years of World War II. In 1945, Howard Florey, Alexander Fleming, and Ernest Maurice Chain received the Nobel Prize for their discovery. When on 3 December 1967, Christiaan Barnard, performed the first heart transplantation, his patient, Louis Washkinsky, died just a few weeks’ later. Indeed, the importance organ rejection was massively underestimated by the pioneers. It required another fun- gus, i.e. Tolypocladium inflatum , to discover another breakthrough drug.
Read full article (European Heart Journal - Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy (2025) 0 , 1–3)