Miracle Cure

Dr Wainwright is Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of Sheffield, where he teaches Mycology and Environmental Microbiology. His research interests include studies of the ecology and physiology of fungi and the history of microbial antagonism and the discovery of antibiotics. He obtained his BSc in 1971 and his Ph.D in 1974, both from the University of Nottingham, and spent a short period in Canada as a National Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow before taking up his present position at Sheffield. In 1984 with a colleague, Harold Swan, he discovered records of the first clinical use of penicillin, and he is currently actively researching the neglected role of Albert Schatz in the discovery of streptomycin. He is married with a daughter aged eight and a son aged five.

• Introduction; the discovery of penicillin; the development of penicillin; the introduction of penicillin into medicine; penicillin - personalities and conflicts; penicillin after the war; the road to antibiotics; streptomycin and the conquest of tuberculosis; antibiotics galore; lives of the four major antibiotic pioneers; an antibiotic miscellany; some recent developments and future prospects.