Gather ‘round the computer screen, as I recite a tale of yore. Way off in a dark and mysterious land known as “Peoria, Illinois” (my hometown) comes the legend of Moldy Mary, and how her magic spoiled fruit helped save millions of lives. This may sound like the talk of storybooks and tall tales… you aren’t likely to see her name in history books. Moldy Mary, born Mary Hunt, was a real person who played an invaluable role in the commercialization of the antibiotic drug Penicillin, which is one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century. Illinois mold may very well have saved the world! Well, not quite, but it has help save millions of lives!
Many people know of Brittish microbiologist Alexander Flemming. In 1928 he discovered that random Penicillium mold spores that landed and started growing in his Petri dishes were limiting the growth of the surrounding bacteria that he was trying to study. He ultimately would share the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945 for his part in this discovery. In 1939 Brittish scientists at Oxford started serious research into the pharmacological applications of Penicillium, however, the team was unable to produce Penicillium mold with a high enough concentration of penicillin for widespread trials and manufacturing. With the cost of WWII putting a strain on the Brittish government, they turned to scientists in the United States who were working with fermentation to increase microbial growth.
In 1941 the researchers at the USDA Northern Regional Research Laboratory in Peoria, Illinois worked on a method where Penicillium mold was grown in vats using a corn by-product https://www.ars.usda.gov/midwest-area/peoria-il/national-center-for-agricultural-utilization-research/docs/penicillin-opening-the-era-of-antibiotics/ . Using Penicillium cultures from all over, the lab started to fine-tune the culture process and worked to find strains of Penicillium that produced larger quantities of the penicillin compound. By a serendipitous chance, the source of the strain that produced the highest concentration of penicillium came from a moldy cantaloupe found at a fruit market not far from the lab. It was brought into the lab by Mary Hunt, who from varying reports was either a laboratory employee or a local housewife. She noted a “pretty, golden mold” on the rind of the melon, from which the culture generated nearly 1000x the amount of penicillin compared to the strain the British scientists were using. Now, we can not say that Mary is the reason over 200,000,000 people’ lives were saved, but the work done at the USDA lab in Peoria was monumental to the rapid industrialization of penicillin. In 1942, 400 million doses of penicillin had been manufactured and by the end of 1945, over 650 billion doses were being manufactured per month https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-real-story-behind-the-worlds-first-antibiotic .
Even with all of the amazing industrial uses for mold, if you see it growing in your home, that is an issue. Check out our mold testing services and contact us to help assess your mold issue. We aren’t likely to contribute to any groundbreaking discovery the way Moldy Mary and her cantaloupe were, but we can help identify and solve mold and moisture issues affecting your home.