Waksman, << WAKS muhn, >> Selman Abraham (1888-1973), was an American bacteriologist who made important contributions to soil microbiology and to the development of antibiotics. He received the 1952 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the discovery of the antibiotic streptomycin (see Streptomycin).
Waksman studied a group of soil microbes known as actinomycetes. He examined the effects of these microbes on the fertility of soil and on the development of humus (decayed organic matter in soil). In 1939, he began testing actinomycetes for antibiotic activity. He and his co-workers tested about 10,000 of the microbes before they discovered streptomycin in 1943.
Waksman was born on July 22, 1888, in Novaia-Priluka (now Nova Pryluka) near Vinnytsia, Ukraine, which was then a part of the Russian Empire. He moved to the United States in 1910 and joined the faculty of Rutgers University in 1918. From 1949 to 1958, he directed the Rutgers Institute of Microbiology. He died on Aug. 16, 1973.
