Selman Waksman: Biography, Achievements & Lasting Legacy

Selman Abraham Waksman (July 22, 1888 – August 16, 1973) was a Russian-born American inventor, biochemist and microbiologist, whose research into the decomposition of organisms that live in soil enabled the discovery of streptomycin and several other antibiotics. For his work he won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Waksman emigrated to the United States in 1910 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1916. A professor of biochemistry and microbiology at Rutgers University for four decades, he discovered several antibiotics (and introduced the modern sense of that word to name them), and he introduced procedures that have led to the development of many others. The proceeds earned from the licensing of his patents funded a foundation for microbiological research, which established the Waksman Institute of Microbiology located at the Rutgers University Busch Campus in Piscataway, New Jersey (USA). After receiving the Nobel Prize, Waksman and his foundation later were sued by Albert Schatz, one of his Ph.D. students and the discoverer of streptomycin, for minimizing Schatz's role in the discovery.

In 2005, Waksman was granted an ACS National Historic Chemical Landmark in recognition of the significant work of his lab in isolating more than 15 antibiotics, including streptomycin, which was the first effective treatment for tuberculosis.