H. Boyd Woodruff (1917-2017)

The quietly brilliant industrial microbiologist H. Boyd Woodruff, whose work underpinned two Nobel Prizes, died at home in Watchung, NJ, on 19 January. He was 99. We lost a dear friend and mentor, and the world lost one of its last living links to the dawn of antibiotic discovery. Boyd played a major role in the expansion of the pharmaceutical industry from relying primarily on chemistry to also embracing microbial natural products.