- Person
- Selman Waksman
- Lived
- 1888–1973
- Field
- Microbiology
- From
- Russian-American
The story
Selman Waksman is best known for antibiotics, but his curiosity about microbes extended from the soil to the ocean. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts was founded in 1930, after a National Academy of Sciences committee called for a permanent American laboratory devoted to every branch of oceanography, and it opened with support from a $2.5 million Rockefeller Foundation grant that paid for a laboratory building and a research ship, the ketch Atlantis, whose outline still forms the institution's logo.
In 1931, while still teaching at Rutgers, Waksman was invited to organise the institution's division of Marine Bacteriology. He served as its marine bacteriologist until 1942, combining the post with his professorship in New Jersey.
His research examined the role of bacteria in marine nutrient cycles, including how they break down seaweed compounds such as alginic acid, cellulose and the remains of tiny animals called zooplankton. With colleagues including Cornelia Carey, Margaret Hotchkiss and others, he measured how many bacteria live in seawater and whether they are active, tested how copper affects their growth, estimated their part in the nitrogen cycle, and sorted marine bacteria into groups according to whether they live in open water, on plankton or in the sediments.
His microbiological work has also been linked to practical advances, including anti-fouling paint for the US Navy. His Nobel biography lists the occurrence of bacteria in the sea and their role in marine processes as one of the main fields of his career, alongside soil microbiology and antibiotics.
Waksman remained closely tied to Woods Hole for the rest of his life. He was elected a trustee and later a Life Trustee, and when he died in 1973 at a hospital in Hyannis, on Cape Cod, he was buried in the Woods Hole Village Cemetery. The institution he helped build in its early years is today the largest independent oceanographic research institution in the United States.
Why it matters
Waksman's marine work helped establish the study of ocean microbes, which are now known to play a central role in the health of the planet's ecosystems.
About Selman Waksman
Discovered streptomycin, the first effective antibiotic for tuberculosis. Coined the word "antibiotic." Nobel laureate, 1952.
More about Selman Waksman
- Waksman isolated the first antibiotic shown to fight cancerIn 1940 Selman Waksman and H. Boyd Woodruff isolated actinomycin from soil bacteria. Actinomycin D became the first antibiotic shown to have anti-cancer activity.
- Selman Waksman's soil research found a cure for tuberculosisSelman Waksman's search of soil microbes produced streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis, and he gave the word 'antibiotic' its modern meaning.
- Waksman's lab isolated more than 15 antibioticsSelman Waksman's laboratory at Rutgers isolated more than 15 antibiotics, including actinomycin, streptomycin and neomycin, and developed methods that led to many more.
- Waksman and his student discovered neomycin in 1949In 1949 Selman Waksman and his student Hubert Lechevalier discovered neomycin at Rutgers. It is still used today in creams, ointments and eye drops.
- Waksman used his royalties to build a research instituteIn 1951 Selman Waksman used half of his personal patent royalties to create the Foundation for Microbiology, which helped fund the Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers.
Sources
- Selman Waksman Wikipedia
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Wikipedia
- Selman A. Waksman: Biographical NobelPrize.org
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