In Martin Hall, Selman A. Waksman and his students isolated antibiotics produced by actinomycetes, most notably streptomycin, the first effective pharmaceutical treatment for tuberculosis, cholera, and typhoid fever. They also isolated neomycin, used as a topical antibacterial agent. These discoveries emerged from Waksman's research program, which developed novel screening protocols for detecting antimicrobial agents in the soil. Waksman received a Nobel prize in 1952 for "ingenious, systematic and successful studies of the soil microbes" that led to the discovery of streptomycin.