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Sidedoor · Dec 10, 2025 · 39 min

A Mold with a Grudge

It started with a messy lab and a mysterious mold. But turning “mold juice” into the world’s first antibiotic would take a sick policeman, a market cantaloupe, and an extraordinary wartime collaboration between scientists, governments, and industry. This is the story of how penicillin changed the world. Guests: Kevin Brown, Trust Archivist to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and curator of the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum at St. Mary’s Hospital; author of Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution Diane Wendt, curator in the Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

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It started with a messy lab and a mysterious mold. But turning “mold juice” into the world’s first antibiotic would take a sick policeman, a market cantaloupe, and an extraordinary wartime collaboration between scientists, governments, and industry. This is the story of how penicillin changed the world.

Guests:

Kevin Brown, Trust Archivist to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and curator of the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum at St. Mary’s Hospital; author of Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution

Diane Wendt, curator in the Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

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