How to Save a Life: The Trifecta of Chemical Engineering, Organic Chemistry and

Medicine in My Search for Purpose

Carlo B. Galicia, BSCHE-3
I usually start my mornings by thinking about what interesting things might happen
during that day. Once during a cold Thursday morning, I woke up and found myself excited
about what the first day of my junior year in college would be like. Finally, I was done with all
the pre-requisite courses I needed to take to get a glimpse of what the last 4 semesters have all
tried to prepare me for. Up to this point, I had only a vague idea of what chemical engineering
was about. I actually thought back then that chemical engineers were just chemists called by
another name and that their work is unheard of because the things that they produce arent so
extraordinary as we might think, like soaps, food items and cleaning products.
But when I started to read about what chemical engineers actually did, my interest was
piqued. The article I was reading at the time featured two pioneers in the mass production of
penicillin during World War 2. Needless to say, without the discovery, isolation and eventual
mass production and distribution of penicillin, the world would have turned out quite differently.
Millions of people would have succumbed to a bacterial infection without having the chance to
fight for their lives. Penicillin has been, and always will be, a revolutionary discovery that has
changed the face of modern medicine. This was the story I wanted to know more about.
Before I gazed upon the article, I wasnt totally convinced if chemical engineering was
actually a career suited for me. To be honest, my 16-year old self would be surprised why I even
considered taking up engineering in college. Having originally wanted to become a doctor since
childhood, I knew I wanted to help people and contribute to uplifting the health and well-being
of mankind. I was fascinated by biology, anatomy and physiology. As graduation neared, I asked
my teachers, family members and friends what they thought was the best course of study for me.
To my utter disbelief, they all said I would be a better engineer than a doctor. I eventually found
myself enrolling as a chemical engineering major, questioning over and over again if I made the
right choice. I weighed out my options, and found out that going to engineering wasnt so bad
after all. Career prospects were good, I liked studying chemistry, physics and math, invent new
things and ideas but deep inside, I still wanted to study medicine. I didnt want to abandon and
hopes and aspirations of becoming a doctor, but I also didnt to ignore the opportunities that
becoming an engineer gave.
But while reading through each paragraph, I found a purpose as to why I should become
a chemical engineer. I wanted to be like Jasper Kane and John McKeen. I wanted to save lives,
but I also wanted to look for new ways of saving them. The world already knows of the
discovery of the penicillin-producing mold (Penicillium notatum) by Alexander Fleming and the
subsequent isolation of penicillin by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain; but perhaps people will
never know about the invaluable efforts and ingenuities of Kane and McKeen. P. notatum, as
they described it was as temperamental as an opera singer, the yields are low, the isolation is
difficult, the extraction is murder, the purification invites disaster and the assay is unsatisfactory.
Think of the risks and then think of the expensive investment in big tanks think of what it

means if you lose a 2000-gallon tank against what you lose if a flask goes bad. Is it worth it? In
the midst of shortages and deadlines caused by the war, the pair and their colleagues got around
various problems in productions by sheer ingenuity, sleepless nights and overworked days. By
introducing air to the tanks through a pump and agitating the mixture using an electric stirrer,
they managed to produce five times the amount of penicillin (45 million units) they expected to
obtain from fourteen 7500-gallon tanks during six months of operation. Their efforts paved the
way to the availability of affordable, safe and effective treatments that we know today.
The story of how the medicinal substances of a mold were isolated and mass produced
was the reason I saw the importance of studying organic chemistry and chemical engineering. By
studying the organic chemistry of medicinal compounds, the mechanisms of infection and
immunity in medicine and the techniques in reaction and batch production in chemical
engineering, I can produce medicines that people need to live more active and healthier lives.
Perhaps chemical engineering and medicine are not so distant after all. Perhaps chemical
engineers are also doctors called by another name, because although they dont go to clinics to
treat people, they still take care of mankind by manufacturing medicines that help people live
their lives to the best that they can and appreciate the beauty and wonders of life. I still want to
go to medical school someday, but right now, I am proud that even though Im not a physician
yet; as a student studying chemical engineering, I can cure of people of their maladies. Hows
that for a motivation?
Story:
Chemengers Who Changed the World: Jasper Kane and John McKeen
TCE Today
http://www.tcetoday.com/~/media/Documents/TCE/Articles/2010/824/824chemengchangew
orld.pdf