Selman A. Waksman
Founder
History
The Waksman Institute of Microbiology is a free-standing research facilility on the Busch campus of
Rutgers University. Only an hour by car from New York City in a rather rural setting of New Jersey that has been named after Selman Waksman, who was a faculty
member of the University for many years. Selman Abraham Waksman was born of Jewish parents on July 22, 1888. In 1910 he came to the United States where his
cousin was a farmer in Metuchen, New Jersey. He sought guidance from Dr. Jacob G. Lipman, a professor at Rutgers College of Agriculture and Director of the New
Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.
Selman Waksman graduated in 1915. His first research efforts seemed modest, but had a profound influence on his scientific career. Selman
Waksman gained and maintained an interest in the actinomycetes, a group of organisms in which he soon became the world's foremost expert. After receiving his
Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, he returned to Rutgers to develop microbiology under Dr. Lipman. Over the years, a total of 18 antibiotics
were isolated in Dr. Waksman's laboratory. Two of these, streptomycin and neomycin, and to a lesser degree actinomycin, have found extensive practical
application. As it became obvious that the royalties from streptomycin, soon to be fortified by the sales of neomycin, would represent millions of dollars, Dr.
Waksman started to think about strengthening general microbiology at Rutgers. At a meeting of the board of Trustees of the Foundation, held in July 1951, it
was resolved that the Foundation should make available to the University $2,300,000 for the proposed Institute of Microbiology.
On June 7, 1954, the official dedication of the new Institute took place, two years after Dr. Waksman received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of
streptomycin. He was also its first director. At its opening it was an impressive 302-foot long Georgian Colonial style building overlooking the golf course of
the University. It harbored 33,000 square feet of usable space which included a lecture hall seating 200 people, a library with 7,000 volumes, a fermentation
pilot plant with vessels ranging in size from five to 300 gallons, and such amenities, long since destroyed, as a dining room with a kitchen, a living room and
a museum. The bulk of the remainder of the royalties received from the sales of these antibiotics were then used to partially support the Institute of
Microbiology.
Dr. Waksman remained the Director of the Institute during the first four years of its existence. While he was director, the Institute would
emphasize research in six major fields: 1) General Microbiology, 2) Microbial Physiology, 3)Antibiotics, 4) Vitamins & Enzymes, 5)Microbial Ecology, and 6) Applied Microbiology
The naming of the Institute after him was accomplished only after his death on August 16, 1973. When he retired as director in 1958, Dr. J. Oliver
Lampen took the helm for the next 22 years. Dr. Lampen was Director of the Division of Biochemical Research at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research in New
Brunswick, New Jersey. Under the leadership of Dr. Lampen, the areas of research at the Institute were characterized as being 1)synthesis and function of microbial
products, 2)immunology and virology with emphasis on cancer and 3)molecular genetics and cellular regulation. The Institute was enlarged by the construction (1964)
of an animal building which provided 4,000 square feet of animal quarters and specialized laboratories.
When Dr. Lampen retired the leadership of the Institute was passed to Dr. David Pramer, a microbial ecologist. Under Dr. Pramer's direction the areas of specialization of the research at the
Institute were expressed as being: 1)synthesis and function of metabolic products of microorganisms and other cells of commercial and medical value and 2)molecular genetics and cellular
regulation. Pramer added continuing education as a regular activity of the Institute. Dr. Pramer inherited an expansion program initiated under Lampen's directorship, namely the building of an
annex to Waksman Hall providing 20,000 square feet of laboratories and support facilities to be dedicated to a Center for Molecular Genetics. This building was completed in 1985. While the
building of the annex was in progress, a search was made for a person who would direct the further development of molecular biology at the Institute.
Eventually, the idea of a separate center was dropped and Dr. Joachim Messing, a world-renowned specialist in recombinant DNA technology, was recruited not only to direct
the development of molecular biology at the Institute but also to coordinate all efforts in this field at Rutgers. Dr. Messing received a Dr. rer. nat. degree in 1975 from the University of
Munich. His first appointment came after postdoctoral work at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich, the Universities of California at San Francisco and at Davis in 1980 at the
University of Minnesota. It was during that period that his ongoing work on DNA sequencing using DNA cloning (e.g. M13mp, pUC vectors, JM strains) became widely used and enabled his own
laboratory to make major contributions to the analysis of plant genes. His widely used techniques and strains have had such a far reaching impact on biotechnological research worldwide that in
October 1991, the journal Science was able to present a table with Dr. Messing as the most frequently cited scientist in the last decade. When he came to Rutgers in 1985, he was
appointed as University Professor of Molecular Biology to report directly to the President of Rutgers University. After Dr. Pramer retired as director of the Waksman Institute in 1988, Dr.
Messing became its fourth director. Major new initiatives under him cover computational and structural biology and further emphasis on molecular genetics of the regulation of gene expression
and biomolecular interactions.
The new expansion has stimulated the introduction of interdisciplinary programs with chemical and biochemical engineering, chemistry, computer sciences, and plant sciences. Evolution of the
research mission from the early days to today has led from a diversity of disciplines centered around antibiotics to the unified discipline of molecular genetics with a more diverse set of
biological problems. Today the Institute employs faculty teams that concentrate on certain classes of organisms amenable to genetic analysis such as bacteria and fungi (E. coli and yeast),
animal systems (e.g., Drosophila), and plants (Arabidopsis, tobacco, and maize). Although the Institute focuses on basic questions in microbial, animal, and plant research, it continues to
engage in extensive technology transfer of its basic discoveries.
The Waksman Institute's mission today is to conduct research in microbial molecular genetics, developmental molecular genetics, plant molecular genetics, and structural and computational
biology. It also is a catalyst for general university initiatives, a life science infrastructure, undergraduate and graduate education, and a public service function for the State of New
Jersey.
