On this page
Tuberculosis is caused by a bacterium, and for most of history there was no drug that could cure it. Streptomycin changed that in the 1940s. It came not from a hospital but from soil, from a lab that had spent decades studying the microbes that live in it. This post covers who Selman Waksman was, how his lab screened soil microbes, the role of Albert Schatz, the long argument over credit, and what you can learn from both men.
Who was Selman Waksman?
Waksman was born on 22 July 1888 in Priluka, in the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine), and died on 16 August 1973 in Hyannis, Massachusetts, according to the Nobel Prize facts page. His Nobel biography records that he moved to the United States in 1910, studied agriculture at Rutgers College, took a PhD in biochemistry at the University of California in 1918 and returned to Rutgers, where he spent his career. His early research was on soil itself: the bacteria in it, how they break down plant and animal remains and form humus, and how they affect soil fertility.
How do you find an antibiotic in soil?
Soil holds huge numbers of microbes competing for space and food, and some of them make chemicals that stop others growing. Waksman's group focused on the actinomycetes, a group of soil bacteria. The Nobel facts page says that in 1939 Waksman and colleagues began systematic studies of how soil microbes affect tubercle bacteria.
The basic screen is simple to picture. Grow a soil microbe, then check whether it stops a test bacterium growing nearby. Repeat with thousands of strains. Most do nothing useful, some are active but too toxic, and a very few are worth purifying. His biography lists the antibiotics his lab and students isolated: actinomycin in 1940, streptothricin in 1942, streptomycin in 1943 and neomycin in 1948, among others. The 1944 streptomycin paper compared the new substance with streptothricin: similar in how it was isolated and in its limited toxicity to animals, but different in which bacteria it acted on and how strongly.
Who actually isolated streptomycin?
The Nobel facts page is direct: "In 1943 Waksman's colleague, Albert Schatz, isolated streptomycin" from the bacterium Streptomyces griseus. The first report, Schatz, Bugie and Waksman (1944), describes a new antibacterial substance from two strains of an actinomycete related to Actinomyces griseus, active against Gram-negative bacteria and of limited toxicity to animals. Schatz was the first author.
The 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Waksman alone "for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis."
Why was there a dispute over credit?
A historical article by William Kingston, Streptomycin, Schatz v. Waksman, and the Balance of Credit for Discovery (2004), sets out the case. Kingston notes that Schatz sued Rutgers for a share of the royalties paid by the drug company Merck, petitioned the Nobel committee to be included, and obtained a substantial out-of-court settlement. Kingston argues that once drug discovery became large-scale routine testing, credit belongs mainly to whoever designed and directed the programme, and that the crucial test could have fallen to any of several students. Kingston was replying to an article in Nature that had used Schatz's case as an example of credit going to the wrong person. Reading both sides is a good exercise in judging evidence.
Waksman's biography adds that most of the royalties from streptomycin and neomycin went to build and run Rutgers' Institute of Microbiology.
How was streptomycin tested in patients?
Kingston notes that work at the Mayo Clinic showed streptomycin was strongly effective against tuberculosis. In Britain, the Medical Research Council ran a trial reported in the BMJ in 1948, Streptomycin Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis. The James Lind Library describes it as a methodological landmark because it set out in detail the steps taken to stop anyone knowing in advance which treatment each patient would get. That kind of fair test is now standard for new medicines. For more on microbes as medicine makers, see our guide to microbes in human welfare.
What can a student take from this story?
Systematic work finds what luck misses. Decades of soil studies built the collection that made screening possible.
Know the difference between a lead and a medicine. Streptothricin was found first; streptomycin was the one that worked out.
Record who did what. Clear notes on each person's contribution would have prevented years of dispute.
Test fairly. The 1948 trial shows how to stop hopes from biasing results.
When you study microbes and medicines, the reasoning behind each step matters more than the names. The Fermi Concept Library covers every concept in biology, each with its own lesson, so you can go back to one idea, such as how bacteria are classified, before moving on. The earlier story of Alexander Fleming and penicillin is a good companion read.
Next step: write two sentences giving Waksman's view and two giving Schatz's, then decide which evidence you find stronger and why.
