Welton I. Taylor

Life & Legacy

Welton Ivan Taylor (November 12, 1919 – November 1, 2012) was an American microbiologist, inventor and civil rights activist. He is known for his work on food-borne pathogens, notably for developing tests for Salmonella and for inventing the XLD (Xylose Lysine Deoxycholate) agar, which can be used to isolate Salmonella and Shigella bacteria.
After obtaining his PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and research relevant to infections of soldiers' wounds at the university's College of Medicine, Taylor joined the food processing company Swift & Company, developing for them an accurate test for the contamination of food with salmonella. This set the direction for his subsequent research, undertaken mostly at Microbiologist-in-Chief at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital, on different ways of detecting specific pathogens accurately and quickly, in a clinical setting.
Taylor was a life-long civil-rights activist, promoting racial equality and working towards de-segregation.
In 2016, Taylor was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1985, a species of bacteria was named jointly after Taylor and an eponymous colleague.