Reports on Penicillin

Abstract

THE Medical Research Council, acting on the advice of its Committee for Penicillin Synthesis, is making available for consultation by interested persons a number of reports on penicillin. In October 1943, when many of the structural features of the penicillin molecule were becoming clear through the work carried out in Great Britain, the problem of the synthesis became a pressing one, and to handle this aspect, the Medical Research Council set up a Committee for Penicillin Synthesis “to initiate, co-ordinate and make investigations on the synthesis of penicillin and analogues”. At the same time the Committee for Medical Research of the Office of Scientific Research and Development in Washington, which had already undertaken the co-ordination of chemical work on penicillinin the United States, came to an agreement with the Medical Research Council for an exchange of information on anything which had a bearing on the problem of the synthesis of penicillin. The confidential reports which were issued and exchanged are known in Great Britain as the C. P. S. reports. A number of reports known as the Pen. reports and sponsored by the Therapeutic Research Corporation of Great Britain contain much information of historical value on the earlier work carried out on the structure of penicillin.