Selman Waksman
Selman Waksman · Science & Medicine
Streptomycin (first antibiotic for TB)
1888, Nova Pryluka, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) — 1973, Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA
Russian Empire (Ukraine) · United States
Selman Abraham Waksman was a Ukrainian-American biochemist, microbiologist, and Nobel laureate who discovered streptomycin, the first effective antibiotic treatment for tuberculosis.
Selman Waksman, born to a Jewish family in a village in what is now Ukraine, emigrated to the United States and became a soil microbiologist at Rutgers. Studying microbes in soil, his laboratory discovered streptomycin in 1943 — the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis, then a leading cause of death. Waksman coined the very word 'antibiotic', and his systematic search of soil organisms yielded several more. He received the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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Source: Nobel Prize Medicine 1952
Streptomycin (first antibiotic for TB)
Source: Nobel Prize Medicine 1952
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