Celebrating Zinaida Ermolyeva

Fondly remembered as “Madam Penicillin,” Zinaida Ermolyeva was a Russian microbiologist and bacterial chemist who saved countless lives by developing and manufacturing antibiotics during World War II as well as inspiring young girls to pursue a career in science.

Born in the Russian town of Frolovo in 1898, Ermolyeva graduated from medical school in 1921. She soon began her research at the Northern Caucasus Bacteriological Institute, working to ensure public health despite scarcity of funds and lab equipment. Four years later she was promoted to lead the Department of Microbiological Biochemistry in Moscow at the USSR Academy of Sciences—a remarkable feat for a young women in what remains a male-dominated field.

Inspired by the work of Sir Alexander Fleming, Ermolyeva worked to develop treatments for wounded troops at risk of infection. Testing hundreds of mold cultures at the Rostov Institute of Bacteriology, Ermolyeva searched for a strain that would treat septic wounds and gangrene. One day she and her assistant were in an air-raid shelter they noticed mold growing on a wall. When they brought it back to the lab, this sample proved effective at fighting infection. Using this sample, Ermolyeva was able to synthesize and mass-produce penicillin in the Soviet Union, which had previously depended on shipments of antibiotics from the West. Shipping penicillin to the front lines, Ermolyeva’s successful research and development of antibiotics saved the lives of many thousands of men and women.

In 1947, the USSR Ministry of Public Health established the Institute of Antibiotics and made Ermolyeva its founding director. During this phase of her career, Ermolyeva conducted important research on streptomycin and developed other important antibiotic agents such as interferon, ekmonovicillin, bicillins, ekmolin and diapsfen.

A founding editor of the journal Antibiotiki, Ermolyeva wrote numerous papers and books on the field of microbiology and antibiotics. Ermolyeva became a full Academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences and in 1970, she was named an Honored Scientific Worker of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.