Penicillin - Periodic Table of Videos

Why is penicillin a bit like a mousetrap? More chemistry at http://www.periodicvideos.com/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• penicillin
• fleming
• florey
• chain

[ClairvoyantTruth]

I love the periodic videos but I really love, like this, the videos on molecules.

[periodicvideos]

thanks... more to come!

[zbret]

This was the best explanation of penicillin and antibiotics I've ever seen. Thanks for this, it was fascinating!

[periodicvideos]

glad you liked it.

[Aramakie98]

I'm spreading the word of Periodicvideos to my Organic class. I think this is an amazing video to get them started.

[periodicvideos]

thanks... we're always happy when people "spread the word" - it keeps us motivated!

[agent2539]

im allergic D:

[bibhuna]

Animal cells don't have cell walls, just membranes.

[radguitar1]

biochemistry

[hromi]

I like these demostrations, very cool!

[gummel82]

please do a video on thc!

[hromi]

Superb explanation!

[Giggyjunior08]

Ah yes. Sorry, a bit of miscommunication there. I'm not sure if it's the amino acid it could be the petidoglycan or the phospholipids I'm not completely sure. Biology wouldn't be my strong point.

[cpovey1]

You should read a book (there are several) on the history of Penicillin. As you said, lots of luck-when US agreed to help Britain scale up production, they assigned it to the one lab that had the perfect growth medium, corn steep liquor, in vast quantities. That, and finding a particular moldy cantaloupe, after literally searching all over the world, increased production like 1,000,000 fold over original methods.

[cpovey1]

Essentially, yes. When a bacteria plugs a molecule of Penicillin into a cell wall, that's like putting a brick made of styrofoam into a wall in place of a regular brick-in other words, the bacteria made a mistake because of the shape. When the cell wall gets big enough, the foam bricks crumble (the beta-lactam ring breaks) and the cell wall breaks apart. The bacteria then swells up from osmotic pressures, bursts, and dies.

[cpovey1]

You didn't understand me: When a bacteria makes a cell wall using Penicillin in place of the amino acid (?) that it wants to use, the cell wall will eventually collapse because the beta lactam ring will eventually break because it is so weak. Thus, the bacteria swells up from osmotic pressure and eventually bursts open and dies.