Published Resources Details
Journal Article
- Title
- The Birth of the Biotechnology Era: Penicillin in Australia 1943-80
- In
- Prometheus: Critical studies in innovation
- Imprint
- vol. 26, no. 4, Pluto Journals, United Kingdom, 2008, pp. 317-33
- Url
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/08109020802459306?needAccess=true
- Subject
- Chronological Classification 1901- Applied Sciences Medical and Health Sciences
- Format
- Description
Originally written as MGSM Case 2001-2 (April 2001) as part of the MGSM Working Papers in Management in the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University The Encyclopedia copy came from Neville McCarthy and includes a handwritten note of thanks from John Mathews. The References are particularly useful for interested researchers. Available as pdf
- Abstract
As Australia and other countries seek to establish biotechnology industries, it istimely to review successes and failures in this field. One of the most notable stories is the devel-opment of penicillin, as a wartime project, to which Australians made major contributions.Australians during and immediately after the war contributed much to the scientific identifi-cation and purification of penicillin, and to the industrial scaling up in its production at theCommonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne. This was a classic instance of war acceler-ating innovations in public administration. Yet the nascent antibiotic industry was neverallowed to gain international competitiveness, and was allowed to run down and eventuallydisappeared by the end of the 1970s. This article is concerned to tease out the puzzle posed bythis contrast in aspirations, between the highest levels of scientific and technical achievementin bringing penicillin into widespread use (Australia being the first country in the world toprovide penicillin to the civilian population in 1944) and shockingly poor performance insustaining and developing a national antibiotics industry. As the stirrings of a biotechnologyindustry may be observed in the first decade of the twenty-first century, it would be unfortunateto ignore the lessons of this earlier experience at the birth of the biotechnology era.
Endnote 1: Much helpful advice and insight was provided by Dr Neville McCarthy, former Director ofthe Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL) and until recently a board member ofAutogen; by Mr Alf Brogan, author of the definitive history of CSL (see Alf Brogan, Committedto Saving Lives: A History of the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, Hyland House, Melbourne,1990); and by Dr Mike Dyall-Smith, of the School of Microbiology and Immunology at theUniversity of Melbourne. The research assistance of Dr Jane Ford is gratefully acknowledged.Above all I wish to acknowledge the help and advice of my late father, Mr Alwyn G. Mathews(1919-2008), who was an important player in the story of penicillin retailed here.
- Source
- Cohn 2008
Related entries
Corporate Bodies
- Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd (1937 - )
- Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL), Commonwealth of Australia (1916 - 1961)
- Commonwealth Serum Laboratories Commission, Commonwealth of Australia (1961 - 1990)
People
Related Published resources
isRelated
- Bickel, Lennard, Rise up to life: a biography of Howard Walter Florey who gave Penicillin to the world (London: Angus and Robertson (U.K.), 1972), 314 pp. Details
- Brogan, Alfred H., Committed to Saving Lives: a history of the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (South Yarra, Victoria: Hyland House, 1990), 301 pp. Details
- Chain, E.; Florey, H. W.; Gardner, A. D.; Heatley, N. G.; Jennings, M. A.; Orr-Ewing, J. and Sanders, A. G., 'Penicillin as a chemotherapeutic agent', Lancet, 236 (6104) (1940), 226-8. Details
- Heagney, Brenda, Half a century of penicillin : an Australian perspective (Sydney: Royal Australasian College of Physicians, 1991), 22 pp. Details
- MacFarlane, Robert Gwyn, Howard Florey, The Making of a Great Scientist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). Details