Fig.1. Example plates of fungi being isolated from soil samples in the Natural Products Discovery Group citizen science project at the University of Oklahoma (Credit: Candace Coker, University of Oklahoma).
Editor’s Note: For the second article in our International Year of Soils series, learn about how to find the next generation of medicine in your own backyard!
In 1928, Alexander Fleming returned from holiday to find something amazing growing on his Petri dishes. Once full of Staphylococcus bacteria, it was now growing mold. Secretions from this mold, later identified as Penicillium notatum, proved to kill a host of harmful bacteria and became the first true antibiotic. Robert Cichewicz, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma, would classify Fleming’s bacteria-killing compounds as natural products, a term applied to many types of compounds made by cells, but are not necessary for their survival like essential proteins or lipids.
