Biography
Selman Waksman was born on July 22, 1888, to Jewish parents in Nova Pryluka, Podolia Governorate, in the Russian Empire, now Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine. He immigrated to the United States in 1910, shortly after receiving his matriculation diploma from the Fifth Gymnasium in Odessa, and became a naturalised American citizen six years later.
Waksman attended Rutgers College (now Rutgers University), where he was graduated in 1915 with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) in Agriculture. He continued his studies at Rutgers, receiving a Master of Science (M.Sc.) the following year. During his graduate study, he worked under J. G. Lipman at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers performing research in soil bacteriology. Waksman was then appointed as Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley from where he was awarded his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Biochemistry in 1918.
Later he joined the faculty at Rutgers University in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology. It was at Rutgers that Waksman's team discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, streptomycin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Two of these, streptomycin and neomycin, have found extensive application in the treatment of numerous infectious diseases. Streptomycin was the first antibiotic that could be used to cure the disease tuberculosis. Waksman coined the term antibiotics.
Many awards and honors were showered on Waksman after 1940, most notably the Nobel Prize in 1952; the Star of the Rising Sun, bestowed on him by the emperor of Japan, and the rank of Commandeur in the French Légion d'honneur.
Selman Waksman died on August 16, 1973 and was interred at the Crowell Cemetery in Woods Hole, Barnstable County, Massachusetts. His tombstone is inscribed simply as Selman Abraham Waksman: Scientist, followed by his dates of birth and death, and the phrase "The earth will open and bring forth salvation" in Hebrew and English, which is a reference to Isaiah 45:8.
He was the father of Byron Waksman, involved in Multiple sclerosis research .
Other little known contributions of Selman Waksman include anti-fouling paints for the Navy, the use of enzymes in detergents, and the use of Concord grape root stock to protect the French Vineyards from fungal infection.
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