2019-07-22 Mon

One of the prominent scientist- microbiologist and biochemist, Selman Abraham Waksman was born on 22nd July 1888. It is he, who first applied the term antibiotic (against life) for chemicals obtained from microorganisms, which killed bacteria, and began to look for such agents.

He was born in Nove Pryluka, Ukraine, into a Jewish family. The fertile soil of his region inspired his thought, and this curiosity had a great impact on his future field of research. In 1910, he immigrated to the United States, and he obtained a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Rutgers University, New Jersey. Later, he joined the University of California to obtain his PhD degree in biochemistry.

In 1944, Selman A. Waksman introduced the antibiotic streptomycin, the first effective drug treatment for tuberculosis, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1952.

Various postage stamps were issued commemorating him for his contribution, one of them is 75 b Gambian Butut stamp issued by the Gambia in 1989.

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