Joshua Lederberg

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Joshua Lederberg
Lederberg in New Delhi, India
5th President of Rockefeller University
In office
1978–1990
Preceded byFrederick Seitz
Succeeded byDavid Baltimore
Personal details
Born(1925-05-23)May 23, 1925
Montclair, New Jersey
DiedFebruary 2, 2008(2008-02-02) (aged 82)
New York City
NationalityAmerican
Spouse(s)Esther Miriam Zimmer (1946–1966; divorced)
Marguerite Stein Kirsch (1968–2008; 1 child, 1 stepchild)
Alma materStuyvesant High School
Columbia University
Yale University
Known forNeurospora crassa
Bacterial conjugation
Dendral
Astrobiology
Transduction
AwardsNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1958)
National Medal of Science (1989)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2006)
Scientific career
FieldsMicrobiologist
ThesisGenetic recombination in Escherichia coli (1947)
Doctoral advisorEdward Tatum
Doctoral studentsNorton Zinder

Joshua Lederberg, ForMemRS[1] (May 23, 1925 – February 2, 2008)[2] was an American molecular biologist known for his work in microbial genetics, artificial intelligence, and the United States space program. He was 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that bacteria can mate and exchange genes (bacterial conjugation).[3] He shared the prize with Edward Tatum and George Beadle, who won for their work with genetics.

In addition to his contributions to biology, Lederberg did extensive research in artificial intelligence. This included work in the NASA experimental programs seeking life on Mars and the chemistry expert system Dendral.

Early life and education

Lederberg was born in

Westinghouse Science Talent Search. He enrolled in Columbia University in 1941, majoring in zoology. Under the mentorship of Francis J. Ryan, he conducted biochemical and genetic studies on the bread mold Neurospora crassa. Intending to receive his MD and fulfill his military service obligations, Lederberg worked as a hospital corpsman during 1943 in the clinical pathology laboratory at St. Albans Naval Hospital, where he examined sailors' blood and stool samples for malaria
. He went on to receive his undergraduate degree in 1944.

Bacterial genetics

Joshua Lederberg began medical studies at Columbia's

bacterium Escherichia coli entered a sexual phase during which it could share genetic information through bacterial conjugation.[6][7] With this discovery and some mapping of the E. coli chromosome, Lederberg was able to receive his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1947.[8]
Joshua married Esther Miriam Zimmer (herself a student of Edward Tatum) on December 13, 1946.

Instead of returning to Columbia to finish his medical degree, Lederberg chose to accept an offer of an assistant professorship in genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His wife Esther Lederberg went with him to Wisconsin. She received her doctorate there in 1950.

Joshua Lederberg and Norton Zinder showed in 1951 that genetic material could be transferred from one strain of the bacterium Salmonella typhimurium to another using viral material as an intermediary step.[9] This process is called transduction. In 1956, M. Laurance Morse, Esther Lederberg and Joshua Lederberg also discovered specialized transduction.[10][11] The research in specialized transduction focused upon lambda phage infection of E. coli. Transduction and specialized transduction explained how bacteria of different species could gain resistance to the same antibiotic very quickly.

During her time in Joshua Lederberg's laboratory, Esther Lederberg also discovered fertility factor F, later publishing with Joshua Lederberg and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. In 1956, the Society of Illinois Bacteriologists simultaneously awarded Joshua Lederberg and Esther Lederberg the Pasteur Medal, for "their outstanding contributions to the fields of microbiology and genetics".

In 1957, Joshua Lederberg founded the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has held visiting professorship in Bacteriology at the University of California, Berkeley in summer 1950[12] and University of Melbourne (1957). Also in 1957, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.[5]

Sir Gustav Nossal views Lederberg as his mentor, describing him as "lightning fast" and "loving a robust debate."[13]

Post Nobel Prize research

Lederberg (right) receiving The National Medal of Science from George H. W. Bush.

In 1958, Joshua Lederberg received the Nobel Prize and moved to

Frank Macfarlane Burnet to study viral antibodies.[14]

With the launching of

exobiology helped expand the role of biology in NASA.[15]

Lederberg was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959 and the American Philosophical Society in 1960.[16][17]

In the 1960s, he collaborated with Edward Feigenbaum in Stanford's computer science department to develop DENDRAL.[14]

In 1978, he became the president of Rockefeller University, until he stepped down in 1990 and became professor-emeritus of molecular genetics and informatics at Rockefeller University, reflecting his extensive research and publications in these disciplines.[18][19]

Throughout his career, Lederberg was active as a scientific advisor to the U.S. government. Starting in 1950, he was a member of various panels of the Presidential Science Advisory Committee. In 1979, he became a member of the U.S.

Gulf War Syndrome
.

During a 1986 fact finding mission of the 1979

anthrax bacteria that killed 66 people in the city of Sverdlovsk, Russia now named Yakaterinberg,[20] Lederberg sided with Soviets that the anthrax outbreak was from animal to human transmission stating, “Wild rumors do spread around every epidemic." “The current Soviet account is very likely to be true."[21]
After the fall of the Soviet Union and subsequent US investigations in the early 1990s, a team of scientists confirmed the outbreak was caused by a release of an aerosol of anthrax pathogen from a nearby military facility, the lab leak is one of the deadliest ever documented.[22][23]

Awards and accolades

Lederberg
in Xanthe Terra on Mars

Personal

Lederberg married fellow scientist Esther Miriam Zimmer in 1946; they divorced in 1966. He married psychiatrist Marguerite Stein Kirsch in 1968. He was survived by Marguerite, their daughter, Anne Lederberg, and his stepson, David Kirsch.

See also

References

  1. S2CID 57778869
    .
  2. ^ "News - News". News.
  3. ^ Warwick, K. "The Joshua Lederberg Papers: Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine", Biography, Volume 24, Number 4, Fall 2001, pp. 978-982
  4. ^ Broad, William J. "Joshua Lederberg, 82, a Nobel Winner, Dies", The New York Times, February 5, 2008. Accessed October 29, 2018. "Dr. Lederberg was born May 23, 1925, in Montclair, N.J., to Zvi Hirsch Lederberg, a rabbi, and the former Esther Goldenbaum, who had emigrated from what is now Israel two years earlier. His family moved to the Washington Heights section of Manhattan when he was 6 months old."
  5. ^ a b "Joshua Lederberg - The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1958 - Biography". 1958. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
  6. S2CID 1826960
    .
  7. PMID 12999698
    .
  8. OCLC 702748249 – via ProQuest
    .
  9. ^ Griffiths, Anthony JF; Miller, Jeffrey H.; Suzuki, David T.; Lewontin, Richard C.; Gelbart, William M. (28 September 2018). "Transduction". An Introduction to Genetic Analysis. 7th Edition – via www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
  10. PMID 17247607
    .
  11. PMID 17247661
    .
  12. ^ "University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives Oral History Project (Joshua Lederberg)" (PDF). U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
  13. ^ "Sir Gustav Nossal in Forging the Path - A Find My Pathway Interview". Find My Pathway. 30 October 2018.
  14. ^
    PMID 18983254
    . Retrieved 23 February 2023.
  15. ^ Scharf, Caleb (January 21, 2016). "How the Cold War Created Astrobiology". Nautilus. Archived from the original on 2016-01-23. Retrieved 2016-01-24.
  16. ^ "Joshua Lederberg". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
  17. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
  18. ^ Center for Oral History. "Joshua Lederberg". Science History Institute.
  19. ^ Center for Oral History. "Joshua Lederberg". Science History Institute.
  20. ^ "AAAS".
  21. ^ "Readonly NLM-id ssim: 101584906X18717 - Joshua Lederberg - Profiles in Science Search Results".
  22. ^ Troianovski, Anton; Matsnev, Oleg (20 June 2021). "Soviets Once Denied a Deadly Anthrax Lab Leak. U.S. Scientists Backed the Story". The New York Times. Yekaterinburg.
  23. ^ "The 1979 Anthrax Leak | Plague War | FRONTLINE | PBS". PBS.
  24. ^ "Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences Recipients". American Philosophical Society. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  25. ^ "Planetary Names: Crater, craters: Lederberg on Mars". planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov.

External links

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