Editing 1940 in science (section)

==Biochemistry==
* August 24 – [[Howard Florey]] and a team including [[Ernst Chain]], [[Arthur Duncan Gardner]], [[Norman Heatley]], M. Jennings, J. Orr-Ewing and G. Sanders at the [[Sir William Dunn School of Pathology]], [[University of Oxford]], publish their laboratory results showing the ''[[in vivo]]'' bactericidal action of [[penicillin]]. They have also purified the drug.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Drews|first=Jürgen|s2cid=1827304|date=March 2000|title=Drug Discovery: a Historical Perspective|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|volume=287|issue=5460|pages=1960–4|doi=10.1126/science.287.5460.1960|pmid=10720314|bibcode=2000Sci...287.1960D }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Patrick|last=Robertson|title=The Shell Book of Firsts|location=London|publisher=Ebury Press|year=1974|page=124}}</ref> On December 25 they seed their first batch of culture with spores of penicillin to grow it in medicinal quantity.
* The [[antibiotic]] [[dactinomycin]] (actinomycin D) is first isolated by [[Selman Waksman]] and [[H. Boyd Woodruff]] at [[Rutgers University]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Waksman|first1=S. A.|last2=Woodruff|first2=H. B.|title=Bacteriostatic and bacteriocidal substances produced by soil actinomycetes|journal=[[Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine]]|volume=45|pages=609–614|year=1940|doi=10.3181/00379727-45-11768|s2cid=84774334}}</ref>