Penicillin was discovered in 1928 by the Scottish physician Alexander Fleming. He observed that a mold called Penicillium rubens (previously named Penicillium notatum) inhibited the growth of bacteria on a contaminated petri dish. Fleming confirmed this antibacterial property of the mold in September 1928 and published his findings in 1929. However, while Fleming recognized its potential, penicillin was difficult to isolate and develop as a drug at the time, so it took more than a decade before it became medically useful through the work of a team at Oxford University in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
