Opinion & Commentary:
Scientific search lasted a lifetime
By Volf Shnaydman and Mariya Markovich
Feb. 1, 2008

In July, it will be 120 years since the birth of an outstanding Russian-American scientist: Microbiologist and Nobel Prize winner Selman Abraham Waksman. Waksman created a miracle medicine, Streptomycin; a boy from a small, provincial Ukrainian town, Waksman attained the peak of a scientific career.

A critical period of scientific activity for Waksman began in the 1930s as a scientific researcher at Rutgers University. He started an extensive program screening soil microbes for human medical application. Waksman wrote that one significant reason for new microbiotic research activity was World War II, which "loomed on the horizon and dictated the necessity of creation of new preparations for control over various infections and epidemics which can arise."

Waksman's research group was filled with talented post-graduate students and employees. About a thousand soil microbe cultures were isolated and tested for antibacterial activity. It was a lengthy and laborious search, which was the reason Dr. Waksman took an excerpt from the Book of Knowledge: "The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them" as an epigraph of his Nobel lecture.

Waksman's screening protocols yielded 20 new natural inhibitory agents for therapeutic use. Dr. Waksman suggested the term antibiotics for these therapeutic agents, which became a powerful weapon in the struggle against infections.

From the citation of his laboratory as a National Historic Chemical Landmark, we learn that Waksman's scientific group worked tirelessly. The first agent isolated in his laboratory was Actinomycin, discovered in 1940 by Boyd Woodruff, Waksman's graduate student. Actinomycin was active against a broad range of bacteria and even showed promise of attacking a tuberculosis strain, but it proved too toxic for therapeutic use. Two years later, Woodruff isolated Streptothricin. The researchers were excited about Streptothricin because initial tests showed that it was not toxic to animals. However, pharmacology studies demonstrated that Streptothricin had a delayed toxic effect.

The partial success of Streptothricin indicated that Waksman and his group were on the right track. They needed to find a variant that inhibited pathogenic organisms (the easy part) without actually killing the host (the hard part). The discoveries that emerged from Waksman's research program along with applied methods for detecting antimicrobial agents in the soil gave them confidence that a successful result would be achieved.

The breakthrough came in 1943 when a member of Waksman's research group, Albert Schatz, isolated Streptomycin, which attacked bacteria resistant to Penicillin. Even more important, Streptomycin exhibited activity against a tuberculosis strain.

To further exploration of Streptomycin's effectiveness, Waksman contacted two medical investigators at the Mayo Clinic, William H. Feldman and H. Corwin Hinshaw, to perform tests with guinea pigs. Feldman and Hinshaw began in vivo tests with Streptomycin in 1944 and within two months reported to Waksman that two tubercular animals receiving the antibiotic looked well. In September of that year, when a 60-day in vivo test of a large sample was completed, Feldman noted that none of the animals had any sign of tuberculosis.

Several medical centers then tested the sensitivity of a tuberculosis strain to Streptomycin in humans. The result appeared stunning: More than a thousand successful cases of a tuberculosis treatment were registered. The tests proved that Streptomycin was the first effective chemotherapeutic treatment for tuberculosis. At the first international conference where results of clinical tests were reported, the efficiency of Streptomycin's application in the struggle against tuberculosis was recognized.

Thus, owing to Dr. Waksman's scientific research, in 1945 mankind received the first effective medicine against tuberculosis. It also was effective against a host of other diseases: Typhoid fever, cholera, bubonic plague, tularemia, urinary tract infections, and others. In 1949, another active antibiotic, Neomycin, was discovered. Thus time has confirmed the efficiency of approaches to chemotherapeutic medicines developed by Waksman.

Streptomycin moved quickly from the laboratory to industrial production. Within three years of beginning production in the U.S.A., 25,000 kilograms of Streptomycin were made each month. Streptomycin immediately began generating huge profits because it attacked a wide spectrum of diseases.

Waksman assigned the patent rights to Rutgers University, which paid royalties to him and the participants of the research group. Waksman used a part of the royalties he received to build the Rutgers Institute of Microbiology, which opened in 1954. Waksman was the director of the institute for four years. The Institute, equipped with the most modern equipment, has greatly expanded essential microbiological research in the U.S.A.

The scientific research of Professor Waksman led to the outstanding discovery of a medication that was a miracle cure. An incalculable number of consumptive patients were restored to life.

Waksman received numerous awards for his scientific activity. He was awarded by the Legion of Honor, with medals from the Hansen Society (Denmark), the Levenguk (Dutch Academy of Sciences), New York Agricultural Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, many other prizes from various scientific organizations, academies of science and clubs. For outstanding merit, honorary doctorates from the universities of Strasburg, Jerusalem, Athens, Rutgers, Princeton, Pennsylvania, New York, and other universities were conferred on him. The Emperor of Japan presented Waksman with the "Star of the Rising Sun."

The Nobel Prize in the field of physiology or medicine was conferred on Waksman in 1952.

When Waksman retired, this outstanding microbiologist continued to write papers and give lectures. Even today he is considered one of the leaders of American microbiology.

Selman Abraham Waksman died in 1973.

We have been in contact with the town of Vinnitsa where Waksman's fellow countrymen have honored their compatriot. Professor Vladimir Alexandrovich Kucher, chair of the tuberculosis department of Vinnitsa National Medical University has done much to acquaint the Ukrainian public with Waksman's achievments. Professor Kucher kindly gave us an account of the Nobel ceremony:

As the solemn awards ceremony began, the huge hall, containing more 1700 people, was overcrowded. To the sound of fanfares the laureates entered the hall and climbed to the stage. Near them were seated numerous employees of various universities and institutes, the Nobel winners of previous years and officials. Everyone was dressed very formally, according to the report, and in full regalia.

The King of Sweden and three members of royal family were seated opposite the laureates on the stage. In the beginning of the ceremony, Professor A. Walgreen, on behalf of the Nobel Foundation and the Karolinska Surgical Institute, made a brief speech presenting Selman Abraham Waksman.

Waksman was directed to the center of the stage where a big letter N was painted. The King, seated on the right side of the stage, rose from his armchair, took the honorary certificate and the gold medal and approached the winner. To the sound of fanfares he presented the honors, shook hands and wished Waksman well. Then the winner bowed, returned to his seat, rose and bowed again to thunderous applause.

Reporters located little Eve Hyollstrom who was the first child saved from tubercular meningitis with Streptomycin and presented her to Waksman. Photos of Eve with Waksman were taken.

The founder's granddaughter, Nan Waksman Schanbacher, is Vice President and Chair of Board of Trustees of the Foundation. We asked Nan to share with us her recollections of her grandfather. She has enjoyed thinking back to those childhood days. It's our pleasure to reproduce Nan's letter here:

"We knew that he was an important scientist and that he had won the Nobel Prize, but my brother and I were always strictly admonished never to talk about it because that would be bragging.

" [....] I now know a great deal more about my grandfather, but it is learned information, not memory. I think he was a profoundly humane person who genuinely cared that he was able to help mankind with his discoveries. I believe, also, that he was a fair person and gave his graduate students (including many women) opportunities that at the time were not automatic, such as putting their names on his scientific papers. He wrote prolifically in excellent English although when speaking, he never lost his heavy accent.

"He was deeply interested in Judaism and in the Diaspora. He was not religious in any true sense, but he was always very attached to his heritage, and he actively promoted many Jewish causes. He was quite influential in helping Israel develop fertile soil and in establishing several universities there."

It is the authors' hope, that on the 120th anniversary of the birth of this Nobel Laureate, the municipality of Odessa will establish a memorial plaque on the building of the former Fifth Gymnasium, and that inside the building (nowadays an Agrarian university) a museum about the gymnasium will be placed, where citizens and visitors to Odessa might become acquainted with an exhibition devoted to Selman Abraham Waksman, whom the world calls "a benefactor of mankind."