New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy signed a bill on Friday (May 10) to officially make Streptomyces griseus the state microbe, reports the Associated Press. The bacteria produce the antibiotic streptomycin, which is used to treat tuberculosis and has lowered the death rate from 194 out of every 100,000 people (infected and uninfected) in 1900 to 9 per 100,000 in 1955, according to the AP.
S. griseus was discovered in soil from New Jersey in 1916. Albert Schatz, Elizabeth Bugie, and Selman Waksman of Rutgers developed the antibiotic in 1944, according to the university’s website.
In addition to helping save lives, the development of streptomycin was important for New Jersey financially. “It was huge for the economy. Streptomycin got all the rest of the antibiotic industry going. A lot of that was based in New Jersey,” microbiologist John Warhol of Warhol Institute tells the North Jersey Record.
The only state that ...
