David Gottlieb

Who was David Gottlieb?

David Gottlieb, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 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 from which chloramphenicol was developed, for his mentoring in the field, and for his editorial work. He used plant-pathogenic fungi in studies of sterol biosynthesis, respiration, aging, spore germination, and the mechanism of action of antifungal antibiotics. Gottlieb discovered or co-discovered several new antibiotics in addition to chloramphenicol, including filipin, levomycin, and tetrin, and he described the mechanism of action and biosynthesis of several of these and other antibiotics.