Selman Abraham Waksman (1888-1973)

Awarded the Prize “for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis.”

American microbiologist. Waksman was born in Priluka, Ukraine on July 22, 1888. After his education at Odessa, he left for the United States. He received his B.Sc. from Rutgers College and obtained his M.Sc. degree in 1916 at Rutgers. In the same year, he became a naturalized United States citizen and was appointed a Research Fellow at the University of California where he received his Ph.D. in 1918. He was Professor, Head of Department and Director of the Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers. Waksman died on August 16, 1973 at Hyannis, Massachusetts.