New Brunswick, N.J. (March 14, 2019) – Rutgers experts are available to comment on legislation that would name Streptomyces griseus as the state microbe. The bill, which would make New Jersey the second state after Oregon to officially recognize a state microbe, is headed to Gov. Phil Murphy for consideration.
The New Jersey Senate voted 34-0 today to approve the bill (S-1729), following last month's 76-0 vote by the state Assembly.
In 1943, Rutgers University–New Brunswick scientists discovered the ability of S. griseus, a soil-based bacterium, to cure tuberculosis. The discovery at the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station defined Rutgers’ role as a leader in antibiotic research and has saved millions of lives around the world.
Professor Selman Waksman and graduate students Albert Schatz and Elizabeth Bugie found that S. griseus produces an antibiotic, which they named streptomycin, that kills the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid and dysentery, all of which were resistant to penicillin. Streptomycin was the world’s first practical broad-spectrum antibiotic – one that kills a greater diversity of pathogens than penicillin. Waksman was awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is the namesake of Rutgers’ Waksman Institute of Microbiology. He is also namesake of the Waksman Museum at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the laboratory in which streptomycin was discovered.
- Max Häggblom, a microbiologist and distinguished professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, can be reached at [email protected].
- Jeffrey M. Boyd, a microbiologist and associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, is available at [email protected], 848-932-5604 or 608-316-5985.
- Douglas E. Eveleigh, distinguished professor of applied microbiology and Eveleigh-Fenton Chair Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, is available at [email protected].
- John G. Warhol, a microbiologist and president of The Warhol Institute, led the legislative effort on the bill. Warhol, who earned a bachelor’s degree at Rutgers and a doctorate at Rutgers and the New Jersey School of Medicine, is available at [email protected], 732-872-6539 and 732-403-9848.
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