Amalia Fleming

Amalia Fleming, Lady Fleming (née Koutsouri-Vourekas; 28 June 1912 – 26 February 1986) was a Greek physician, activist and politician.

Fleming was born in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1912. She moved to Greece and, during the Axis occupation, took part in the National Resistance, for which she was jailed by the Italians. She married Sir Alexander Fleming in 1953, but with his death in March 1955 she was widowed less than two years later.

She returned to Greece in 1963 and was arrested by the Greek junta during the period of the dictatorship (1967-1974) for acts of resistance. She was released from prison due to health problems in 1971 but was stripped of her Greek citizenship and exiled. While in exile, she wrote a "A Piece of Truth," a personal account of her imprisonment as well as of the trial of Alexandros Panagoulis. While in London she worked with Melina Mercouri and Helen Vlachos of Kathimerini against the junta of the colonels.

Fleming returned to Greece after the fall of the junta in 1974. She joined PASOK and was elected to the Greek Parliament in 1977, 1981 and 1985. She also was active in several human rights organisations, notably Amnesty International, Democratic Concern, and Human Rights Union.

Fleming initiated and funded the establishment of the Greek Foundation for Basic Biological Research "Alexander Fleming" (1965) which was later transformed to the Biomedical Sciences Research Center "Alexander Fleming", a governmental, non-profit institution which is actively involved in research areas covering immunology, molecular biology, genetics and molecular oncology.

Amalia Fleming died in 1986. The same year a hospital was founded at Athens and named after her (currently known as Sismanogleio-Amalia Fleming General Hospital).