The Ballad of Schatz and Waksman

[Magpie]

Among the great exponents of science

are those who grapple hard for glory

and those who find it snatched away,

with names confined to dusty books,

brief mentions, at best;

and few, if any, hear their story: - don't need this stanza, the rest of the poem implies this

 

Albert Schatz, entranced by soil;  - this seems like a good starting point, I like the poetic language in this stanza

he mulched his way through masses of muck

and found a microbe he supposed

could halt the charge of tuberculosis.

Within a matter of months,

a saviour appeared: streptomycin.

 

His supervisor, one Selman Waksman,

assumed control of the clinical trials.

Waksman and received a Nobel Prize,

and As for Schatz,

long after Waksman’s death,

he earned a kind of mangled amends:

the American Society for Microbiology

bestowed on him its highest award:

the Selman Waksman medal,
named after the supervisor who... 

I like the story you've told here, i just feel as though it suffered from being too clinical, the repetition of Waksman didn't really help the last stanza and I think the poem would work better with the 'reveal' being right at the very end.

I had written a much more comprehensive reply but the internet stole it, so that's why this one may seem so brief.