The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1952
Awarded on: 1952-10-23
"for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis"
Affiliations:
- Rutgers University – New Brunswick, NJ, USA
Selman Abraham Waksman
Born: 1888-07-22 in Priluka, Russian Empire (now Nova Pryluka, Ukraine)
Gender: male
Field: Russian Jewish-American biochemist, microbiologist, and Nobel Laureate (1888–1973)
Biography
Selman Abraham Waksman was a Jewish American 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. A professor of biochemistry and microbiology at Rutgers University for four decades, he discovered several antibiotics, 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). In 1952, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "ingenious, systematic, and successful studies of the soil microbes that led to the discovery of streptomycin." 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.