Lederberg, Joshua (1925–)

Joshua Lederberg is an American molecular biologist who obtained a share of the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edward Lawrie Tatum and George Wells Beadle for his research on the genetic structure and function of microorganisms. Together with genetics, Lederberg's other main field of research is artificial intelligence. He worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) experimental programs to detect life on Mars and contributed to the development of Dendral, a system designed to analyze mass spectra.

Lederberg was born in Montclair, New Jersey, on May 23, 1925. He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City from where he graduated at the age of 15. In 1941, he enrolled at Columbia College, [Page 1004]obtaining his B.A. in Zoology three years later. From 1944 to 1946, he conducted further research in zoology under the supervision of Professor F. J. Ryan. Lederberg was then Research Fellow of the Jane Coffin Childs Fund for Medical Research in the Department of Microbiology and Botany at Yale University, and worked with Professor E. L. Tatum from 1946 to 1947. He was awarded his Ph.D. degree in 1948.

Lederberg started his academic career as an assistant professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin in 1947. He progressed quickly, becoming Associate Professor in 1950 and Professor in 1954. He was responsible for organizing the Department of Medical Genetics in 1957, also acting as its chair for a year. It was while at the University of Wisconsin that Lederberg developed his research on the process of transduction between bacteria that earned him the Nobel Prize. Lederberg demonstrated how bacteriophages could transfer genetic information among bacteria in salmonella. This phenomenon explained how different bacteria could quickly develop resistance to the same antibiotic.

In 1959, Lederberg was hired by Stanford University Medical School, where he supervised the establishment of the Department of Genetics, becoming then its Executive Head. While at Stanford, he became interested in the biological impact of space explorations, warning that extraterrestrial viruses could spread on Earth. He advocated quarantine for astronauts and sterilization for the equipment. In 1978, Lederberg was appointed President of Rockefeller University and remained in that position until 1990. Throughout his career, Lederberg has received prestigious awards such as the National Medal of Science and has taken part in several important governmental committees, including Jimmy Carter's Cancer Panel and the Task Force on Persian Gulf War Health Effects.