1898-1968

English Pathologist

Sir Howard Walter Florey was also known as Baron Florey of Adelaide. He was an Australian-born British pathologist who worked with Ernst Boris Chain (1906-1979) isolating and purifying penicillin. They further demonstrated its effectiveness against harmful bacteria, developed methods for mass production, and helped introduce it into general clinical use. Together, they, with Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), the discoverer of penicillin, shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Because of his contributions to science, Florey was knighted in 1944.

Howard Florey was born in 1898, at Adelaide, South Australia. His early education was at St. Peter's Collegiate School in Adelaide. He subsequently attended Adelaide University, where he graduated in 1921. He accepted a Rhodes Scholarship to Magdalen College and moved to England, never to return to his native Australia. Following that experience, he went to Cambridge and eventually received his Ph.D...