In 1946, in a Europe devastated by World War II, a small, abandoned brewery in a valley of Austria’s Tyrol region was converted into an antibiotics factory. Michel Rambaud, a chemist and French officer with the Allied occupation forces, devised the project based on the fact that the fermentation process by which yeasts make beer is, in essence, the same process that Penicillium fungi use to synthesize the active ingredient in penicillin. The change of use for the facilities opened a new era: the start of industrial penicillin production saved millions of lives and helped drive a rapid economic recovery across the continent, powered partly by the pharmaceutical sector.

Seguir leyendo