David Gottlieb (1911–1982), a professor of

plant pathology Plant pathology or phytopathology is the scientific study of plant diseases caused by pathogens (infectious organisms) and environmental conditions (physiological factors). Plant pathology involves the study of pathogen identification, disease ...

at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

(1946–1982), was a pioneer in the field of fungal physiology and antibiotics for plants. Gottlieb is best known for isolation in the 1940s of the strain of

Streptomyces ''Streptomyces'', from στρεπτός (''streptós''), meaning "twisted", and μύκης (''múkés''), meaning "fungus", is the largest genus of Actinomycetota, and the type genus of the family Streptomycetaceae. Over 700 species of ''St ...

from which

chloramphenicol Chloramphenicol is an antibiotic useful for the treatment of a number of bacterial infections. This includes use as an eye ointment to treat conjunctivitis. By mouth or by intravenous, injection into a vein, it is used to treat meningitis, pl ...

was developed, for his mentoring in the field, and for his editorial work. He used plant-pathogenic fungi in studies of

sterol A sterol is any organic compound with a Skeletal formula, skeleton closely related to Cholestanol, cholestan-3-ol. The simplest sterol is gonan-3-ol, which has a formula of , and is derived from that of gonane by replacement of a hydrogen atom on ...

biosynthesis Biosynthesis, i.e., chemical synthesis occurring in biological contexts, is a term most often referring to multi-step, enzyme-Catalysis, catalyzed processes where chemical substances absorbed as nutrients (or previously converted through biosynthe ...

respiration Respiration may refer to: Biology * Cellular respiration, the process in which nutrients are converted into useful energy in a cell ** Anaerobic respiration, cellular respiration without oxygen ** Maintenance respiration, the amount of cellul ...

aging Ageing (or aging in American English) is the process of becoming Old age, older until death. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi; whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentiall ...

spore germination Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, fe ...

, and the

mechanism of action In pharmacology, the term mechanism of action (MOA) refers to the specific biochemical Drug interaction, interaction through which a Medication, drug substance produces its pharmacological effect. A mechanism of action usually includes mention o ...

of antifungal antibiotics. Gottlieb discovered or co-discovered several new antibiotics in addition to chloramphenicol, including

filipin Filipin is a mixture of chemical compounds first isolated by chemists at the Upjohn company in 1955 from the mycelium and culture filtrates of a previously unknown actinomycete, '' Streptomyces filipinensis''. It was discovered in a soil sample ...

, levomycin, and tetrin, and he described the mechanism of action and biosynthesis of several of these and other antibiotics.

Honors

*Guggenheim Fellow, Biology-Plant Science, 1963. *Fellow, The American Phytopathological Society, 1966. *Editor for the ''Annual Review of Phytopathology'', 1969–1974. In his memory, the "David Gottlieb Memorial Award" is given by the

for outstanding published research on the biochemistry of plant diseases or plant pathogens.,

Publications

* Gottlieb, D. (Jan. 1961) "'An Evaluation of Criteria and Procedures Used in the Description and Characterization of the Streptomycetes: A Cooperative Study" ''Appl Microbiol.'' 9(1): 55–65. * Gottlieb, D. (1974) "Germination of fungal spores: Biochemical processes during spore germination, Carbohydrate metabolism" 2nd International Symposium on the Fungus Spore.

References

20th-century American botanists American microbiologists American phytopathologists University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty 1911 births 1982 deaths 20th-century American agronomists {{US-botanist-stub