Norman Heatley, 92; Helped Develop Production of Penicillin

Norman Heatley, 92, a scientist who helped develop penicillin production, died Jan. 5 at his home near Oxford, England, of undisclosed causes.

Penicillin, an antibiotic produced by mold, was discovered by accident in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. But it was Heatley and his Oxford University colleagues, researching newly discovered antibacterial substances, who produced enough for the first clinical tests on people.

Heatley used dairy tins, pie plates and biscuit tins as fermentation vessels so he could extract the needed amounts of penicillin from mold. Later, he designed a porcelain vessel for mass production of the substance.

Heatley also set up the first penicillin factory at Oxford and, in 1941, came to the U.S. to work with government scientists at the Northern Regional Research Laboratory in Peoria, Ill., on large-scale commercial production. Many thought Heatley should have shared the Nobel Prize in medicine awarded in 1945 to Fleming and two others, but he remained modest about his contributions.

A native of Suffolk, England, Heatley earned his doctorate in biochemistry from Cambridge and was Nuffield research fellow in pathology at Oxford for 30 years. In 1978, Queen Elizabeth II named him an officer of the Order of the British Empire.