A Mold with a Grudge

It started with a messy lab and a mysterious mold. But turning “mold juice” into the world’s first antibiotic would take a sick policeman, a market cantaloupe, and an extraordinary wartime collaboration between scientists, governments, and industry. This is the story of how penicillin changed the world. Guests: Kevin Brown , Trust Archivist to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and curator of the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum at St. Mary’s Hospital; author of Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution Diane Wendt , curator in the Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

You can listen to A Mold with a Grudge online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

A Mold with a Grudge is an episode from Sidedoor by Smithsonian Institution .

This episode is 39:07 long.

This episode was published on Dec 10, 2025.

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