Waksman and his student discovered neomycin in 1949

Person: Selman Waksman
Lived: 1888–1973
Field: Microbiology
From: Russian-American

The story

After streptomycin, Selman Waksman's laboratory at Rutgers kept searching the soil for new medicines. Streptomycin had transformed the treatment of tuberculosis, but doctors soon found that bacteria could become resistant to it, and new drugs were needed.

In 1949 Waksman and his graduate student Hubert Lechevalier discovered neomycin, produced naturally by the soil bacterium Streptomyces fradiae. They published the discovery in the journal Science. Waksman and Lechevalier noted that the new substance was active against bacteria that had become resistant to streptomycin, as well as against the germ that causes tuberculosis. Lechevalier later wrote a history of the Rutgers Institute of Microbiology, where much of this work was carried on.

Neomycin belongs to the aminoglycoside family of antibiotics and works against a range of bacteria. It is too harsh on the kidneys and hearing to be given by injection in normal doses, so it is used where it can act locally. It received approval for medical use in 1952, the same year Waksman received the Nobel Prize, and Rutgers University was granted the patent in 1957. Royalties from streptomycin and neomycin went largely to build and support the Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers.

Today neomycin is used in oral and topical forms, including creams, ointments and eye drops. In the United States it is available over the counter as an ingredient in common first-aid ointments, so many families have used a product of Waksman's laboratory without knowing it. Taken by mouth it stays mostly in the gut, where doctors have used it to lower the risk of infection after bowel surgery and to help patients with serious liver disease. Tiny amounts are also used as a preservative in some vaccines.

For generations, neomycin has helped prevent infection in minor cuts, scrapes and burns. In 2023 a topical combination of neomycin with other drugs was the 260th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than a million prescriptions.