WION: Fleming's aspirations as England Test coach include WTC, top ranking and Ashes
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Alexander Fleming
Sir Alexander Fleming was a Scottish physician and microbiologist. He shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Florey and Ernst Chain "for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases". This was the first antibiotic substance discovered. His discovery in 1928 of what was later named benzylpenicillin from the mould Penicillium rubens ha…
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science · Scottish physician and microbiologist (1881–1955) · bacteriologist · pharmacologist · physician · surgeon · inventor · also Alexander Fleming, Sir Alexander Fleming, Fleming
Born 6 August 1881 · Died 11 March 1955 · Q37064
75 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 11 entries
Telegraph India: Fleming’s agenda: No. 1 in Tests, Ashes and World Test Championship glory for England
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AS: Alexander Fleming, Premio Nobel de Medicina: “Los fracasos son también útiles porque, bien analizados, pueden
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Yahoo Sports: 'I’d love to be no. 1': Fleming lays out England’s Test ambitions ahead of South Africa Tour and Ashes
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The News Mill: Stephen Fleming aims for World Test Championship and top Test ranking
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BBC: Fleming on England discipline, Stokes, late arrival and coaching styles
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BBC: Stephen Fleming: England Test coach on Bazball, Ben Stokes, team discipline and more
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The Guardian: Appointment of Root and Fleming has been a mess but they could be a good blend | Mark Ramprakash
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The Guardian: ‘He has fire and ice’: Mike Hussey on Fleming’s new England Test era
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The Guardian: Stokes decoded: his concerns for Joe Root and hopes for ‘great man’ Stephen Fleming | Ali Martin
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The Guardian: Key talks up Fleming England reset and an imaginary future for Test team
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2025· 1 entry
FACTLY rated the claim “The father of Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, saved a young Winston Churchill from drowning. In gratitude, Churchill’s father paid for Fleming’s education. Later on, Fleming’s penicillin saved Winston Churchill’s life from pneumonia.” FALSE.
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2021· 2 entries
Published “Integrated analysis of multimodal single-cell data” in Cell — cited 15,181 times.
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Published “Integrated analysis of multimodal single-cell data” in Cell — cited 15,581 times.
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2002· 1 entry
Was included in the BBC's television poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, and in 2009, he was also voted third "greatest Scot" in an opinion poll conducted by STV, behind only Robert Burns and William Wallace
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2001· 1 entry
“Lecture at Harvard University. Quoted in Joseph Sambrook, David W. Russell, Molecular Cloning (2001), Vol. 1, 153.”
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1999· 3 entries
Snopes.com rated the claim “The father of Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, saved a young Winston Churchill from drowning; in gratitude Churchill's father paid for Fleming's education.” False.
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Snopes rated the claim “The father of Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, saved a young Winston Churchill from drowning; in gratitude Churchill's father paid for Fleming's education.” False.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
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Was named in Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century
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1998· 2 entries
As: "Without Fleming, no Chain; without Chain, no Florey; without Florey, no Heatley; without Heatley, no penicillin
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Where his son Robert and his great-granddaughter Claire were presented to the Queen; it is now one of the main preclinical teaching sites of the Imperial College School of Medicine
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1994· 1 entry
“Reported in Dennis V. Parke, "Clinical Pharmacokinetics in Drug Safety Evaluation," in ATLA: Alternatives To Laboratory Animals, vol. 22, no. 3, May/June 1994, p. 208.”
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1966· 1 entry
As coming from La Touche's room, which was directly below Fleming's
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1955· 15 entries
Died 1955-03-11.
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“How fortunate we didn't have these animal tests in the 1940s, for penicillin would probably not have been granted a licence, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realised.”
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“It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject: the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to the enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual.”
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“I have been trying to point out that in our lives chance may have an astonishing influence and, if I may offer advice to the young laboratory worker, it would be this—never neglect an extraordinary appearance or happening. It may be—usually is, in fact—a false alarm that leads to nothing, but may on the other hand be the clue provided by fate to lead you to some important advance.”
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“Original: «For the birth of something new, there has to be a happening. Newton saw an apple fall; James Watt watched a kettle boil; Rontgen fogged some photographic plates. And these people knew enough to translate ordinary happenings into something new.”
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“Para el nacimiento de algo nuevo, tiene que haber un acontecimiento. Newton vio caer una manzana; James Watt vio hervir una tetera; Rontgen empañó algunas placas fotográficas. Y estas personas sabían lo suficiente como para traducir los sucesos ordinarios en algo nuevo.”
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“Non ho certo programmato di rivoluzionare la medicina.”
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“No son los vestíbulos de mármol los que proporcionan la grandeza intelectual, sino el alma y el cerebro del investigador.”
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“Original: «One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.”
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“Come siamo stati fortunati a non avere questi test sugli animali negli anni '40, perché probabilmente la penicillina non avrebbe ottenuto una licenza e forse l'intera gamma degli antibiotici non sarebbe mai stata realizzata.”
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“A veces uno encuentra lo que no busca.”
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“The context is: "the present approach to drug safety evaluation, based on experimental animal studies, is known to be of questionable scientific veracity and has never been satisfactorily validated as an appropriate surrogate system for man. My former teacher, Sir Alexander Fleming, in his late years, chided me, saying …”
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“A volte si trova ciò che non si cerca.”
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Fleming owned a country home named "The Dhoon" in Barton Mills, Suffolk
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“One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.”
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1954· 1 entry
Awarded honorary doctor of the University of Bordeaux (1954).
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1949· 2 entries
Awarded Actonian Prize (1949).
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Fleming married Amalia Koutsouri-Vourekas, a Greek colleague at St
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1948· 2 entries
Awarded honorary doctor of the University of Madrid Complutense (1948).
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Awarded Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise (1948).
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1946· 2 entries
Awarded Commander of the Legion of Honour (1946).
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Won Albert Medal (1946).
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1945· 4 entries
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine — for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases.
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Awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1945).
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Awarded doctor honoris causa from the University of Paris (1945).
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Awarded Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (1945).
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1944· 4 entries
Awarded John Scott Award (1944).
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Awarded Knight Bachelor (1944).
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Was furious, and commented:I found penicillin and have given it free for the benefit of humanity
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Enough penicillin had been produced to treat all the wounded of the Allied troops
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1943· 1 entry
Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society (1943).
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1941· 2 entries
Published a method for assessment of penicillin effectiveness
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The British Medical Journal reported that "[Penicillin] does not appear to have been considered as possibly useful from any other point of view
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1940· 2 entries
Fleming telephoned Howard Florey, Chain's head of department, to say that he would be visiting within the next few days
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Several clinical trials ensued, and their amazing success inspired the team to develop methods for mass production and mass distribution in 1945
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1939· 1 entry
Fleming's notebook shows attempts to make better penicillin production using different media
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1936· 1 entry
There was no appreciation for penicillin
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1929· 2 entries
Was captain of the London University rifle team and was about to participate in an inter-hospital rifle shooting competition when he developed conjunctivitis
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In the British Journal of Experimental Pathology, but little attention was paid to the article
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1928· 4 entries
I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer
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Studied the variation of Staphylococcus aureus grown under natural condition, after the work of Joseph Warwick Bigger, who discovered that the bacterium could grow into a variety of types (strains)
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“When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer, ... But I guess that was exactly what I did.”
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Of what was later named benzylpenicillin (or penicillin G) from the mould Penicillium rubens has been described as the "single greatest victory ever achieved over disease"
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1924· 1 entry
Their only child, Robert Fleming (1924–2015), became a general medical practitioner.
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1922· 1 entry
And along with it a bacterium he named Micrococcus lysodeikticus, later renamed Micrococcus luteus
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1921· 1 entry
“[If] he had been as tidy as he thought I was, he would not have made his two great discoveries.”
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1918· 1 entry
Returned to St Mary's Hospital, where he was elected Professor of Bacteriology of the University of London in 1928
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1914· 1 entry
And promoted captain in 1917, Fleming served throughout World War I in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was Mentioned in Dispatches
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1908· 1 entry
Gained a BSc degree with gold medal in bacteriology, and became a lecturer at St Mary's until 1914
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1906· 1 entry
Qualified with an MBBS degree from the school with distinction
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1901· 1 entry
The younger Alexander enrolled at St Mary's Hospital Medical School in Paddington, now part of Imperial College London
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1881· 1 entry
Born 1881-08-06.
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