OVERLOOKED SCIENTISTS
Marjory Stephenson
Marjory Stephenson Was known from for investigating how bacterial breakdown (metabolism) of nutrients it needs for survival. As well as to carry out the functions of life such as movement and reproduction. She published the book called “Bacterial Metabolism” in 1930 and was the co-founder of the society for general microbiology and was the societies second president.
Mary Hunt
Now moving forward in time to 1943 Mary Hunt was instrumental in bringing penicillin into mass production. As Fleming’s mould was not suitable to produce the penicillin in the large quantities needed for mass production. She spent years at local markets in Oxford where she worked looking at mouldy produced which got her the name “mouldy Mary” by the locals but eventually in 1943 she found a strain called Penicillium chrysogenum from the cantaloupe melon in 1943. This led to the mass production of penicillin being possible.
​
“Moldy Mary” became a folk legend and is depicted in this oil painting by artist Douglas Gorsline (likely painted in 1943 or 1944) holding a cantaloupe representative of that from which strain NRRL 1951 was isolated.
Elizabeth Bugie Gregory
In the next year (1944) Elizabeth Bugie discovered the first antibiotic to work against gram negative bacteria (a certain group of bacteria based on its fundamental structure). This antibiotic being called streptomycin. Up until this point only antibiotics that covered gram positive bacteria. This only being around half of all bacterial infections. So, this discovered helped a lot more people survive bacterial infections. Her name was not put onto the paper publishing this work as her male colleagues had to opinion that her name was not important due to that she would one day get married and have a family and therefore change her name. As was common for women at this time in history. As her career progressed, she researched other antimicrobial substances and was involved with other female scientists at the Rutgers University she collaborated with such as Elizabeth horning, Doris jones, Christine Reilly, Doris Hutchinson and Vivian Schlatz they all worked during the “golden age of antibiotic discovery” of which half of these antibiotics are used in the medical field today.