H. Boyd Woodruff.
H. Boyd Woodruff (AG’43)
Distinguished research scholar H. Boyd Woodruff passed away on January 19, 2017 at the age of 99.
Historic NJAES and SEBS photo; Boyd Woodruff with Selman Waksman
Woodruff studied under Selman Waksman as a graduate student in the Department of Microbiology and discovered the first antibiotic in Rutgers history, actinomycin, which has been used in treating Wilms Disease, a childhood cancer. His discovery marked a profound moment in medicine, proof that soil microbiology could be harnessed to recover antibiotics from cultured microbes taken from soil.
Woodruff continued to perform research at Merck & Co. during World War II, leading developments in antibiotics, vitamins and the anticancer agent, action.
Read more about H. Boyd Woodruff at In Memoriam and in The New York Times.
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