Albert Schatz (scientist) - Biography

Biography

Schatz was born in Norwich, Connecticut on February 2, 1920. His parents were Jewish-Russian and English and he was raised on a farm. After a change of direction from farmer to pedology following a course by Dr. Jacob Joffe, Schatz began graduate school at Rutgers University, at Selman Waksman's laboratory, and eventually went on to earn his Ph.D. from Rutgers.

With a meager stipend, Schatz lived in a small room in a greenhouse at the university. In early 1942, he was drafted into the Army and served as a laboratory aide at Miami Hospital, where he saw young soldiers die from infections resistant to penicillin. This led him to look for soil bacteria capable of inhibiting the growth of penicillin resistant microbes. He sent some promising strains to Waksman for further testing.

In early 1943, Schatz was discharged from the army due to problems with his back, returned to graduate school, and continued work on soil bacteria in Waksman's basement laboratory at Cook College in Rutgers University. Waksman was at the last stages of purifying streptomycin, testing it at an external lab in vivo in animals, and formulating the procedures for isolating antibiotic-producing bacteria.

In 1945 he received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University.

According to coworker and friend Professor George Pieczenik, of Rutgers University, Schatz was known to sleep in his basement laboratory. When Schatz got married, he and his wife were forced to move a bed into the lab, which was so small that the two had to "lean it against the wall just so that it would fit".

Despite these conditions, Schatz took only three months to isolate two strains of Actinobacteria capable of stopping the growth of several penicillin-resistant bacteria, on October 19, 1943.

Schatz was listed second on the patent after Waksman, first on the scientific paper, and had soon after the discovery issued his doctorate thesis on the discovery of streptomycin.

Originally, the discovery of streptomycin was credited only to Schatz's supervisor, Selman Waksman, who would receive a Nobel Prize in 1952 for this work. Schatz, however, strongly contested the crediting and in 1950 brought litigation against Waksman, requesting recognition as streptomycin's co-discoverer and a portion of streptomycin royalties. Schatz's requests were eventually granted in an out-of-court settlement where he was given 3% of the royalties.

Schatz held faculty positions at Brooklyn College; the National Agricultural College in Doylestown, Pennsylvania; the University of Chile. He joined the Temple University faculty in 1969 and retired in 1981.

Schatz was awarded the Rutgers medal in 1994 for his work on developing streptomycin.

In the 1990s, Schatz supported the research on microbes using co-creative science at the Perelandra Center for Nature Research, calling co-creative science "the most important advance in the history of science." Citing the increasing problem of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, he wrote, "We may win battles, but microbes will win the war unless we approach them differently."

Schatz was a socialist, an active environmentalist and was involved in local welfare, co-operatives and community recycling projects. An example of his community involvement, in 2003 Schatz volunteered at the nearby Weavers Way (co-op) sharpening knives. He campaigned against water fluoridation and argued for a "proteolysis-chelation theory" of tooth decay, which was criticized as "more philosophic than experimental".

In 2004, author Inge Auerbacher co-wrote the book Finding Dr. Schatz: The Discovery of Streptomycin and a Life It Saved with Schatz. The book chronicled his discovery of streptomycin and meeting Auerbacher, a holocaust survivor and recipient of his antibiotic. A documentary by the same name Finding Dr. Schatz, directed by Richard Colosi from Rochester, NY was released in 2009.

Schatz died from pancreatic cancer, at his home in Philadelphia on January 17, 2005.