David Gottlieb (1911–1982), a professor of plant pathology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1946–1982), was a pioneer in the field of fungi 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. In his memory, the “David Gottlieb Memorial Award” is given by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for outstanding published research on the biochemistry of plant diseases or plant pathogens.