The lasting legacy of Norman Heatley, the unassuming penicillin pioneer who changed the course of medicine
‘…without Heatley, no penicillin’ — Sir Henry Harris
Norman Heatley is often described as the unsung hero of the penicillin story. A recent PhD graduate with a genius for invention, he became a pivotal member of the Oxford team that developed the miracle drug in the early 1940s.
But while his colleagues at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology — Professor Howard Florey and Ernst Chain — were awarded the Nobel Prize for their efforts, for decades Norman’s contributions went unrecognised. His daughter Rose reflects on his incredible legacy, and explains how she plans to make her own mark on the future of human health by leaving a gift to the Dunn School in her will.
The great survivor
‘Penicillin was the height of my father’s career. He was very young — 30 years old,’ says Rose Heatley, Norman’s eldest daughter. She was born after the drug’s development and doesn’t recall him talking about it when she was growing up. ‘My awareness of the penicillin story and his work didn’t come until there were the anniversaries of the discovery. Daddy was always the one interviewed because all the other people involved had died, so he became the great survivor.’
Even then, she says, ‘he was so modest. He used to say: I’m not that special.’ Many would strongly disagree with that assessment, of course. In an interview with the BBC in 2010, medical historian and author Dr Eric Sidebottom described him as ‘the key technical man’ in the Oxford team. He devised a clever assay for measuring the activity of penicillin, established appropriate conditions under which it was stable, and pioneered a multi-stage technique to isolate and concentrate it.
Norman also designed the ceramic vessel used to grow the Penicillium notatum mould from which penicillin was extracted in the necessary quantities for clinical trials. ‘I’ve got one here,’ says Rose, taking it down from a shelf in her living room. Perched on top are two little vials, which read: 100,000 Oxford units, penicillin, sodium salt, store below 10 degrees centigrade. ‘I think maybe he kept his paperclips in them,’ she laughs.
Norman commissioned a company to make 1,000 of these vessels and by early 1941 the team felt as though they had enough penicillin to start treating humans. On 12 February that year, 43-year-old policeman Albert Alexander became the first patient to receive the drug. He was being cared for at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and although his condition initially improved, supplies of the penicillin ran out before the cure could be completed. He succumbed to his infection shortly after.
The team then changed their approach to administering the drug and, following a series of treatment successes and publication of their findings, were able to secure its mass production in the US (Norman, who had travelled there with Howard Florey in 1941, stayed on for some time as an adviser in the research laboratories). Within just a few years penicillin was being used to treat Allied soldiers fighting in the Second World War, significantly reducing the number of deaths and amputations caused by infected wounds.
It’s estimated that over 500 million lives have now been saved by the drug.
A quintessential family man
Norman may have played a pivotal role in one of the greatest medical advances of the 20th century, but it was only in his later years that he began to receive wider recognition for the contribution he made. In 1990 he was awarded an extremely rare Honorary Doctorate of Medicine from Oxford University, and two decades later, a Blue Plaque was unveiled at his home of more than 60 years.
It was here, and in his role as a family man, that Rose remembers her father most fondly. He was exceptionally practical, she says, making over 20 bookcases for the house as well as a slide that fastened to the stairs, allowing her and her siblings to whizz down them onto a pile of cushions below. He was also ‘far from a gender stereotype’, doing all of the family’s washing, making curtains and lampshades, altering clothes and growing vegetables in the garden. And he was very kind, too, regularly offering lifts to people waiting at the bus stop as he and his family drove past in their car.
Before her father’s death in 2004, Rose helped to set up the Norman Heatley Lecture at the Dunn School in honour of his work there. The annual event gives members of the University the chance to hear from and meet some of the world’s top scientists. After Rose inherited some money from her godmother, she made a further gift towards their maintenance. ‘It just felt like a very worthy cause, bringing people together of international renown in the field of medical research, some of them Nobel Prize winners,’ she says.
Rose makes a point to attend every year, returning to the place she remembers visiting as a child: she and her father would have a sandwich lunch together every Friday in his lab, before he took her to ballet class in the afternoon. It was this personal connection that initially sparked an interest in leaving the Dunn School a gift in her will — a decision that was cemented by the incredible impact of the work taking place there now.
Despite enormous past research successes, the department has never rested on its laurels. Today, close to 300 scientists from more than 30 countries work collaboratively to uncover the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underpin human health and disease. Areas of focus include the identification of novel therapies and diagnostic strategies for cancer, and the development of vaccines for bacterial and viral pathogens.
Many challenges still to be solved
Rose didn’t follow in her father’s scientific footsteps. Instead she studied Chinese at SOAS in London before embarking on a career at the BBC, starting with the Chinese section of the World Service. Her interest in the country’s language and culture remains today, and she points to the Chinese Taoist emphasis on the importance of knowing what is ‘enough’ as a guide for her giving. ‘It’s over 2,000 years old,’ she says, ‘and a real prompt to donate.’
As the Dunn School approaches its centenary in 2027, donations of any size, including those left as gifts in wills, have a critical role to play. ‘Penicillin has saved millions of lives,’ says Rose, ‘but there are still many challenges to be solved. It’s money that could lead to new drugs and very necessary new drugs for all kinds of illnesses, which will benefit potentially millions of people — how can that not be good thing?’
Leaving a legacy to Oxford
Legacies provide an important source of funding for the University of Oxford, enabling it to continue to make vital breakthroughs in the 21st century. If you would like to discuss leaving a gift to Oxford in your will, please contact our legacies team at legacies@devoff.ox.ac.uk or on 01865 611520.
Further reading: Take a closer look at the international team of scientists and medics that came together in Oxford to develop penicillin, including the ‘penicillin girls’, pictured above.
