Lewis W. Wannamaker

Lewis W. Wannamaker (* May 19, 1923, † 24 March 1983 ) was an American microbiologist and pediatric specialist.

Wannamaker graduated from Emory University and medicine at Duke University. After residency training in pediatrics at Duke University Hospital and Willard Park Hospital he was in the U.S. Army at Case Western Reserve University in the Department of Preventive Medicine and built by Charles Rammelkamp and other streptococcal laboratory at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base on in Wyoming. He showed, among other things, that the treatment of streptococcal infections and other bacterial infections with penicillin ( against streptococcal pharyngitis ) prevents the development of rheumatic fever, for which he received the 1954 Lasker Award. Also the rest of his career, he remained as a scientist and consultant with the U.S. Army connected, for example, as a longtime director of the Commission on Streptococcal and staphylococcal infections. From 1952 he was at the University of Minnesota, where he was head of the Department of Infectious Diseases in Children professor of pediatrics and microbiology.

Wannamaker was a leading expert on streptococcal infections. He characterized several nucleases of group A streptococci and developed from the antibody response to these nucleases a strep test, which has become a standard test. He also studied the genetics and epidemiology of streptococci and their toxins. For example, he found significant differences in streptococcal infections in skin and throat. Later, his group examined the genetic control of cell-surface factors of streptococci, which are important for their virulence and the immune response to streptococcal products.

In 1980 he was awarded the Robert Koch Prize. He was Guggenheim Fellow and received the Alexander von Humboldt Award for Senior U.S. Scientists. From 1958 he was Career Investigator of the American Heart Foundation. He was chairman of the Committee on rheumatic fever and bacterial endocarditis. He was vice president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. In 1982 he became a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.