Waksman, Selman Abraham(1888–1973) Ameri-
canBiochemist Selman Abraham Waksman was born
in Priluka, near Kiev, Russia, on July 22, 1888, to
Jacob Waksman and Fradia London. He received his
early education from private tutors and took school
training in Odessa in an evening school, also with pri-
vate tutors.
In 1911 he entered Rutgers College, having won a
state scholarship the previous spring, and received a B.S.
in agriculture in 1915. He was appointed research assis-
tant in soil bacteriology at the New Jersey Agricultural
Experiment Station and continued graduate work at
Rutgers, obtaining an M.S. in 1916, the year he became
a naturalized U.S. citizen. In 1918 he was appointed a
research fellow at the University of California, where he
received his Ph.D. in biochemistry the same year.
He was invited back to Rutgers and by 1930 was a
professor. When the department of microbiology was
organized in 1940, he became professor of microbiol-
ogy and head of the department, and nine years later
was appointed director of the Institute of Microbiol-
ogy. He retired in 1958.
Waksman brought medicine from the soil. By
studying soil-based acintomycetes, he was able to
extract a number of antibiotics such as actinomycin
(1940), clavacin and streptothricin (1942), strepto-
mycin (1943), grisein (1946), neomycin (1948),
fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and more. His discovery
of streptomycin, the first effective treatment against
tuberculosis, brought him the 1952 Nobel Prize for
physiology or medicine.

He published more than 400 scientific papers and

has written, alone or with others, 18 books, including

Principles of Soil Microbiology(1927) and My Life with

the Microbes(1954), an autobiography. He was a mem-

ber of numerous scientific organizations. In 1950 he was

made commander of the French Légion d’Honneur. He

died on August 16, 1973, in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

Warburg, Otto Heinrich(1883–1970) GermanBio-

chemist Otto Heinrich Warburg was born on October

8, 1883, in Freiburg, Baden, to physicist Emil Warburg.

He studied chemistry under EMILFISCHERand received

his doctor of chemistry from the University of Berlin in

1906, and a doctor of medicine from the University of

Heidelberg in 1911.

In 1918 he was appointed professor at the Kaiser

Wilhelm Institute for Biology, Berlin-Dahlem, and from

1931 to 1953 he was director of the Kaiser Wilhelm

Institute for Cell Physiology (now Max Planck Insti-

tute) in Berlin.

He specialized in the investigation of metabolism in

tumors and respiration of cells. He discovered that

flavins and the nicotinamides were the active groups of

the hydrogen-transferring enzymes, and his early dis-

covery of iron-oxygenase provided details of oxidation

and reduction (redox reactions) in living organisms.

For his discovery of the nature and mode of action of

the respiratory enzymes that enable cells to process

oxygen, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1931. He

was offered a second Nobel Prize in 1944 for his

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