Initial discovery of antibiotic penicillin was done by

The correct answer is Alexander Fleming

Concept:

• Antibiotics are compounds that kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria, and they revolutionized medicine by providing effective treatment for bacterial infections.
• The discovery of penicillin, the first widely used antibiotic, marked a significant breakthrough in medical science and has saved millions of lives.
• Penicillin was discovered accidentally by Alexander Fleming in 1928 when he noticed that a mold called Penicillium notatum produced a substance that inhibited bacterial growth.

Explanation of Correct Answer:

• Alexander Fleming: He was a Scottish bacteriologist who discovered penicillin, the first true antibiotic, in 1928.
• Fleming observed that colonies of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus were destroyed by a mold contaminant on a culture plate.
• He identified the mold as Penicillium notatum and named the substance it produced "penicillin." This discovery earned him, along with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945.

Other Options:

• Francis Crick: Crick was a British molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, best known for co-discovering the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) in 1953 alongside James Watson. 
• Maurice Wilkins: Wilkins was a British physicist and molecular biologist who contributed to the discovery of DNA's double-helix structure. He worked closely with Rosalind Franklin and shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Watson and Crick.
• Charles Darwin: Darwin was a British naturalist best known for his theory of evolution by natural selection, published in his seminal work, On the Origin of Species in 1859.