Selman A. Waksman Papers

Selman Abraham Waksman was born in Priluka, Russia, on July 22, 1888 to the merchant Jacob Waksman and his wife Fradia (London). Waksman graduated from the Fifth Gymnasium in Odessa, Russia, and came to the United States in 1910. He entered Rutgers College in 1911, where he worked under another Russian emigré, Dr. Jacob G. Lipman, whose primary research was on soil microbiology. Waksman graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1915 and received a Master of Science the following year, at which time he also became a naturalized citizen. In 1916, Waksman married a young woman he had known in Russia, Deborah Mitnik, and entered the University of California at Berkeley to study biochemistry. He received his Doctorate in 1918, having supported his graduate study by working part-time at the Cutter Biological Laboratories in Berkeley.

Waksman returned to Rutgers in 1918 and began working as a microbiologist in the department of soil chemistry and bacteriology at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. He also held an appointment as a lecturer at Rutgers. Until 1920 Waksman also worked part-time as a bacteriologist for the Takamine Laboratories in Clifton, New Jersey, in order to supplement his income. Waksman became an associate professor at Rutgers in 1924 and achieved the rank of full professor in 1930. The following year he also became associated with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, where he organized the division of marine bacteriology. Waksman, who became head of the newly organized Department of Microbiology at Rutgers in 1942, also continued to serve as microbiologist of the Agricultural Experiment Station until 1954 when he became director of the newly established Institute of Microbiology of Rutgers University, which was founded with proceeds from the sale of patent rights to Waksman's discovery of the antibiotic streptomycin and largely funded through royalties from his various patents.

As a microbiologist, Waksman concerned himself primarily with soil organisms. His marine studies at Woods Hole were similarly concerned with microorganisms in the sea. Waksman became a leading authority on the soil organisms known as actinomycetes and his most significant work was the isolation of a number of antibiotics from these organisms. The most important of these was streptomycin, isolated in 1942, which revolutionized the treatment of tuberculosis and for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1952. Altogether Waksman and his associates isolated twenty-two antibiotics, including actinomycin (1940), neomycin (1949), and candicin (1953). Besides his work on soil organisms and antibiotics, a term coined by Waksman, he also did notable work on such subjects as the production of enzymes and organic acids, on the decomposition of organic matter, including the building of humus and the utilization of peat, on edible fungi, on fermentation, and on the role of microorganisms in metal corrosion. Waksman's work resulted in the publication of some 500 authored and coauthored papers. He also wrote or edited twenty-eight books; among them were historical works on microbiology and three biographies, including one on his mentor Jacob Lipman.

From the beginning of his career Waksman showed a keen interest in the practical applications of his research. During World War II he served as a civilian member of the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the National Research Council. His most significant practical contributions were as a consultant to Merck and Company in 1938, for whom he patented a number of organic acids and antibiotics. Rutgers benefitted from Waksman's association with Merck through royalties as well as the establishment of a fellowship in the Department of Soils. Waksman later convinced Merck to relinquish its exclusive rights to streptomycin and allow the university to license it to other pharmaceutical companies. The large royalties for the drug patent were used by the Rutgers Research and Educational Foundation, of which Waksman was the director, to establish and fund the Institute for Microbiology. After his retirement as director it was renamed the Waksman Institute of Microbiology in his honor.

Waksman, who became wealthy from his patent royalties, used the proceeds in a number of philanthropic ventures. He established the Foundation for Microbiology to award research grants and scholarships in the field. Similar Waksman Foundations were established in Japan and France from foreign rights to streptomycin and neomycin in order to support microbiology research in those countries. He also established a fund to enable immigrants or their children to study agriculture at Rutgers, and his wife established a scholarship fund for music students at Douglass College. A scholar of Jewish history and a strong supporter of the state of Israel, Waksman was also involved in the establishment of the Institute of General and Industrial Microbiology at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

Waksman received numerous honors and awards for his scientific work. The most notable of these was, of course, his Nobel Prize. Among others he was also awarded the rank of commander of the French Legion of Honor; the Leeuwenhoek Medal of the Netherlands Academy of Sciences; the Emile Christian Hansen Prize of the Carlsberg Laboratorium, Copenhagen, Denmark; the Mary Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association, the Amory Award of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and honorary degrees from many American and foreign universities. Waksman was prominent in the international scientific community and was a member of several scientific societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine, the International and American Soil Science and Societies, the Society of American Bacteriologists, the Mycological Society of America, the American Society of Agronomy, and the French Academy of Sciences. His many honorary memberships included those in the French and Swedish Academies of Agriculture, the Kaiserlich-Deutsche Akademie der Naturtorscher, the Royal Scientific Society of Upsala, Real Academia de Farmacia of Madrid, Israel Microbiological Society, La Sociedad de Historia Natural of Mexico, the Society of Biological Chemists in India, and the Brazilian Chemical Society.

In 1958 Waksman retired as director of the Institute of Microbiology, but remained at the university as professor emeritus with an office and research laboratory under his direction. There he also worked on cancer research. During his long teaching career seventy-seven of his students were awarded graduate degrees; the most renowned of whom was Rene Dubos, who isolated the first medicine from soil bacteria to fight pneumonia. Dubos's research helped inspired Waksman's own studies of antibiotics. Waksman died on August 16, 1973 and was buried in Woods Hole.