When Howard Florey, with his team in Oxford, developed penicillin, he had not set out to save countless lives around the world. He and the men and women who worked with him were scientists, interested in puzzling out how things work, how the universe is put together; thinking God’s thoughts after Him.
Joshua and I have reasons to be grateful to the work of Florey’s team: I could well have died as an infant, and Joshua could be blind. Scarlet fever and periorbital cellulitis are, for the time being, readily curable.
But in 1941, the British government could not afford to pay for the clinical development and industrial scale-up necessary to turn a scientific curiosity into the medical miracle it became. Penicillin, and the industrial boon and fillip to research that came with it, went to the USA – a gain for the world, but a loss to Britain in the lean post-War years.
Today, basic science – the science that Florey and Heatley and Chain and Jennings performed – is under threat in Britain. Without sustained, adequate levels of funding, the amount and quality of basic research will suffer, perhaps for a generation, perhaps irreparably. And with that loss the chances of breakthroughs – in the area of antibiotic resistance, for example – dwindle sharply.
Science is Vital is making sure the potential consequences of continued disinvestment in science are made crystal clear to the Government. To get involved, send your own message to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. Check out our Guardian science blogger gallery at Notes and Theories if you need inspiration.
Richard P Grant is a scientist-turned-science writer, and Secretary of Science is Vital
