Accidental Inventions

            A number of scientific discoveries appear to happen purely thru luck. Invention of sticky notes, Febreze, saccharin (artificial sweetener), x-ray, pacemaker, etc. appear to be accidental. But, Louis Pasteur, the famous French biologist, famously said “in the field of observation chance favors only the prepared mind”. In this blog we will see that the history of the invention of penicillin and graphene prove that chance does not favor everyone but, at times, it seems to favor the prepared mind.

Penicillin – The Miracle Drug

            As early as 15th century, Paracelsus was able to explain normal function of human being and diseases in terms of chemical synthesis and pioneered drug discoveries. But, even at the turn of the 20^th century the chemical that would kill a microorganism and leave the host unaltered was not discovered (Rifkind & Freeman, 2005). Paul Ehrlich was able to discover the magic bullet for treating syphilis around 1910 but the search for more magic bullets remain futile (Lagerkvist, 2003).

            In 1928, Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist working in St. Mary’s Medical School in London, was studying staphylococcus. He left a culture plate open on his desk and went on a vacation. When he returned from vacation, while talking to a friend, noticed a zone around the invading fungus on the culture plate in which the bacteria did not grow. He found that an air borne fungus, which is closely related to the mold that grows in bread, has fallen into the culture plate. Alexander Fleming obtained an extract from the mold and called it penicillin (Gaynes, 2017). Alexander Fleming found the synthesis of penicillin to be very hard, but the world war II increased the demand for a drug that would heal the infection of soldiers. It took more than 10 years since the day of its original discovery to create a process to isolate penicillin from broth culture (Rifkind & Freeman, 2005).

Graphene – The Miracle Material

            Graphene, the material that could revolutionize biomedical, technology, transportation, energy, etc. was discovered when two scientists at the University of Manchester when they were playing about with flakes of carbon graphite (Conner, 2013, Nanographi., n.d.). Geim and Novoselov were using the sticky tape to remove some flakes from a pile of graphite and found that some flakes were thinner than others. By repeatedly peeling off layers from the pile of graphite, they managed to separate the thinnest layer of the material that is one atom thick. The one atom thick material is graphene and is found to be useful from solar cells to alcohol distillation to dialysis. In an interview with Steve Conner of Independent, the co-inventor and Nobel laureate Novoselov, said “a playful idea is perfect to start things but then you need a really good scientific intuition that your playful experiment will lead to something, or it will stay as a joke forever” (Conner, 2013). 

            Though it could appear as if Geim and Novoselov invented graphene by chance, a deeper look at their approach would reveal that there is a method to the madness. They both frequently held 'Friday night experiments' where they tried new and different experiments that is not related to their day job. They also had a playful approach to conducting research. It was during one of these Friday night experiments, while playfully removing layers of graphite they discovered graphene (Conner, 2013). Just like Louis Pasteur noted chance favors the prepared mind and Geim and Novoselov were prepared to capitalize on the opportunity that chance provided them.  

References

Rifkind, D., & Freeman, G. L. (2005). The nobel prize winning discoveries in infectious diseases. San Diego: Elsevier Science & Technology.

Lagerkvist, U. (2003). Pioneers of microbiology and the nobel prize. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Gaynes R. (2017). The discovery of penicillin - new insights after more than 75 years of clinical use. Emerging Infectious Disease. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5403050/#R2

Nanographi. (n.d.). 60 uses of graphene. Retrieved from https://nanografi.com/blog/60-uses-of-graphene/

Conner S. (2013). The graphene story: how Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov hit on a scientific breakthrough that changed the world... by playing with sticky tape.  Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/graphene-story-how-andrei-geim-and-kostya-novoselov-hit-scientific-breakthrough-changed-world-playing-sticky-tape-8539743.html