Howard Walter Florey

Howard Walter Florey, also known as Baron Florey or The Lord Florey, was an Australian-born pharmacologist and pathologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Ernst Chain and Alexander Fleming for his role in the development of penicillin. He was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on September 24, 1898. He studied medicine at the University of Adelaide and then won a Rhodes Scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. He later obtained a PhD from Cambridge University and a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation. He became a professor of pathology at the University of Sheffield in 1931 and then at the University of Oxford in 1935. He was also the director of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford. He collaborated with Chain and other scientists to isolate and purify penicillin from a mould discovered by Fleming in 1928. They conducted experiments on animals and humans to test the efficacy and safety of the drug. They also developed methods for mass production and distribution of penicillin during World War II. Their work saved millions of lives from bacterial infections and revolutionized medicine. Florey was also involved in other research projects on lysozyme, cephalosporins, contraception, immunology and bacteriology. He published several books and papers on these topics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1941 and served as its president from 1960 to 1965. He was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He received many honours and awards for his contributions to science and medicine, such as the Order of Merit, the Copley Medal, the Royal Medal, the Lister Medal, the Medal of Merit and honorary degrees from various universities. He was knighted in 1944 and made a life peer in 1965. He became the Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford in 1962. He died of heart failure in Oxford on February 21, 1968.