Sources of Medicines

Medicines such as painkiller, anti-inflammatory drugs, antibiotics and antacids are used to cure people from disease or treat the symptoms to make people feel better.Bioactive compounds in plants and microorganisms have medicinal effects and are the source of many drugs.The first antibiotic to be widely used is penicillin. It was discovered by Alexander Fleming from the mould Penicillium chrysogenum. Some years later Ernst Chain and Howard Florey developed the processes needed to grow the mould and extract the antibiotic from the mould leading to large scale production of penicillin.Modern drugs can be designed by computer programmes. Computers are also used to search through databases of chemicals for potential drugs.Analysis of the genomes of pathogens can allow scientists to target drugs to attack vulnerabilities.