Selman A. Waksman, winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine

Abstract

The history of the discovery and development of streptomycin is reviewed here from the personal standpoint of a member of Dr. Selman Waksman's antibiotic screening research team. The team approach of eight individuals illustrates how the gradual enhancement of the screening methodology was developed. I illustrate three study periods with key aspects in the development of streptomycin which led to a Nobel Prize being granted to Professor Waksman. One item not previously emphasized is the employment of a submerged culture technique for large-scale production of streptomycin, thus enabling rapid animal testing and human clinical trials with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Another is that purified streptomycin was shown by Dr. Waksman to be distinctly different from the substances called natural products, which are no longer patentable in the United States; therefore, streptomycin was found to be patentable. A third item not previously emphasized is his emphasis on the screening of actinomycetes, including the newly named Streptomyces genus. All of these factors contributed to the success of streptomycin in the treatment of tuberculosis. In combination, their successes led to Dr. Waksman's department becoming a new pharmacological research area, specializing in drug discovery. These unique accomplishments all burnish the prior rationales used by the Karolinska Institute in granting Dr. Waksman alone the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

FIG 1

Professor Selman Waksman with graduate student H. Boyd Woodruff. Laboratory photograph during the studies leading to the discovery of actinomycin, 1940. Administration Building, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS), Rutgers University. (Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries. With permission.)

FIG 2

Professor Selman Waksman with graduate student Albert Schatz. Laboratory photograph during the studies leading to the discovery of streptomycin, 1944. Administration Building, SEBS, Rutgers University. (Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries. With permission.)

FIG 3

The Waksman antibiotic team. Department reunion, Society of American Bacteriologists Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, 1947. Standing (left to right): David Hendlin (fosfomycin at Merck), Albert Schatz (streptomycin), H. Boyd Woodruff (actinomycin and streptothricin), Elizabeth Horning (clavacin and fumigacin), and Ed Karow (development of submerged fermentation). Seated (left to right): Christine Reilly (streptomycin development), Mrs. Deborah Waksman, Dr. Wayne Umbreit (visiting researcher), Professor Selman Waksman, and Professor Robert Starkey. Front row (left to right): D. Montgomery Reynolds (grisein) and Harry Katznelson (rhizosphere studies). (Department of Microbiology Collections, Rutgers University. With permission.)

FIG 4

(Left to right) Professor Waksman with Randolph Major (Research Director, Merck and Co.) and Alexander Fleming (Nobel Laureate, penicillin), discussing the cross-streak antibiotic screening technique. Waksman laboratory, Administration Building, SEBS, Rutgers University, 1940s. (Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries. With permission.)

FIG 5

(Left to right) H. Boyd Woodruff in discussion with Joachim Messing (Director, The Waksman Institute) and Robert Goodman (Dean, SEBS) at the opening of the Selman Waksman Room, Library of Science and Medicine, Rutgers University, and celebration of H. B. Woodruff's 90th birthday, July 2007. (Photograph courtesy of Douglas E. Eveleigh. With permission.)