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Selman Abraham Waksman (July 22, 1888 – August 16, 1973) was a Jewish Ukrainian inventor, Nobel Prize laureate, biochemist and microbiologist whose research into the decomposition of organisms that live in soil enabled the discovery of streptomycin and several other antibiotics.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1952 was awarded to Selman Abraham Waksman "for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis"
Apr 15, 2024 · Selman Abraham Waksman was a Ukrainian-born American biochemist who was one of the world’s foremost authorities on soil microbiology. After the discovery of penicillin, he played a major role in initiating a calculated, systematic search for antibiotics among microbes.
May 24, 2005 · The text of the plaque commemorating the landmark reads: Here, in Martin Hall, Selman A. Waksman and his students isolated antibiotics produced by actinomycetes, most notably streptomycin, the first effective pharmaceutical treatment for tuberculosis, cholera, and typhoid fever.
Selman Abraham Waksman. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1952. Born: 22 July 1888, Priluka, Russian Empire (now Nova Pryluka, Ukraine) Died: 16 August 1973, Hyannis, MA, USA. Affiliation at the time of the award: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.
He identified more than 20 new natural inhibitory substances, including streptomycin and neomycin, and proposed the now standard term “antibiotics” for this class of natural growth inhibitors. With his discovery of streptomycin in 1944, Waksman initiated a collaboration with Merck and Company.
Selman Waksman was a prolific writer, publishing papers in a wide range of scientific journals, in several languages. He was author or coauthor of 28 books. His “Principles of Soil Microbiology,” an 897-page volume, the first edition published in 1927, for years became the standard text book of his field.
