Landmark Honors Selman Waksman

On May 24, ACS honored soil microbiologist Selman A. Waksman (1888-1973), whose research with soil samples led to the discovery of a number of antibiotics, including streptomycin--the first effective pharmaceutical treatment for tuberculosis. Waksman's research was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark at ceremonies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., where the research was done.

The event attracted around 200 people, including some of Waksman's former graduate students. It was held in conjunction with the ACS Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting.

William F. Carroll, president of ACS, presented a commemorative bronze plaque to Timothy M. Casey, dean of academic and student programs at Cook College, Rutgers University. The plaque commemorating the event 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. They also isolated neomycin, used as a topical antibacterial agent. These discoveries emerged from Waksman's research program, which developed novel screening protocols for detecting antimicrobial agents in the soil. Waksman received a Nobel Prize in 1952 for 'ingenious, systematic, and successful studies of the soil microbes' that led to the discovery of streptomycin."

Waksman was born in Ukraine in the waning days of the Tsarist Russian Empire. Seeking access to a university education denied him because he was Jewish, Waksman immigrated to the U.S. in 1910 and entered Rutgers University in 1911. There, he received a bachelor's degree in agriculture, and, following Ph.D. work in biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the Rutgers faculty in 1918. He stayed there for the remainder of his career.

By the time he was on the Rutgers faculty, Waksman's interest in actinomycetes was long-standing. Actinomycetes are unicellular filamentous microbes that have characteristics of both bacteria and fungi. They are responsible for the distinct odor of fresh, moist soil. Waksman had studied actinomycetes as an undergraduate, but it was not until the late 1930s, in the light of the 1928 discovery of penicillin and its development for use as a pharmaceutical in the late 1930s and early 1940s, that he turned his attention to the search for microbes that attack other microbes.

In the 1930s, Waksman's group began the search for antibiotics produced from actinomycetes. The culmination was the isolation of streptomycin in 1943 by Albert Schatz, a graduate student of Waksman's.

Another student, H. Boyd Woodruff, who received his Ph.D. with Waksman in 1940, attended the landmark ceremony. He said his first visit to the lab was a highlight of his life. Hearing one lecture convinced him to be a researcher. Other former Waksman students who attended the ceremony were Donald Johnstone, Warren P. Iverson, Anthony Romano, and Carl P. Schaffner. During a special part of the ceremony, they shared personal memories of Waksman and reflected on their work.

Unlike Sir Alexander Fleming's serendipitous discovery of penicillin through accidental contamination of bacteria by an airborne fungus, Waksman's team worked methodically, testing culture after culture for antibiotic activity. Woodruff and others in the lab worked painstakingly with microorganisims on agar plates to determine which microbes would inhibit each other.

The first antibiotic isolated in Waksman's lab was actinomycin, which was discovered by Woodruff. Actinomycin was active against a broad range of bacteria, but proved too toxic for therapeutic use. Two years later, Woodruff isolated streptothricin, which was only partially successful in treating tuberculosis. A breakthrough occurred in 1943 when Schatz joined the team and isolated two strains of Streptomyces griseus that produced streptomycin, which attacked bacteria resistant to penicillin.

Other antibiotics developed in Waksman's lab include neomycin, radicin, candicidin, and candidin. Actinomycin has been used in cancer chemotherapy.

In recognition of his accomplishments, the trustees of Rutgers University voted in 1949 to establish an Institute of Microbiology and made Waksman its first director.