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Joshua LederbergForMemRS
Lederberg in New Delhi, India
5th President of Rockefeller University
In office 1978–1990
Preceded by	Frederick Seitz
Succeeded by	David Baltimore
Personal details
Born	(1925-05-23)May 23, 1925 Montclair, New Jersey
Died	February 2, 2008(2008-02-02) (aged 82) New York City
Spouse(s)	Esther Miriam Zimmer (1946–1966; divorced) Marguerite Stein Kirsch (1968–2008; 1 child, 1 stepchild)
Alma mater	Stuyvesant High School Columbia University Yale University
Known for	Neurospora crassa Bacterial conjugation Dendral Astrobiology Transduction
Awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1958) National Medal of Science (1989) Presidential Medal of Freedom (2006)
Scientific career
Fields	Microbiologist
Thesis	Genetic recombination in Escherichia coli (1947)
Doctoral advisor	Edward Tatum
Doctoral students	Norton Zinder

Joshua Lederberg ForMemRS (May 23, 1925 – February 2, 2008) 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). 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.

Later in his life, he was a proponent of eugenics.

Early life and education

Lederberg was born in Montclair, New Jersey, to a Jewish family, son of Esther Goldenbaum Schulman Lederberg and Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Lederberg, in 1925, and moved to Washington Heights, Manhattan as an infant. He had two younger brothers. Lederberg graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City at the age of 15 in 1941. After graduation, he was allowed lab space as part of the American Institute Science Laboratory, a forerunner of the 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 College of Physicians and Surgeons while continuing to perform experiments. Inspired by Oswald Avery's discovery of the importance of DNA, Lederberg began to investigate his hypothesis that, contrary to prevailing opinion, bacteria did not simply pass down exact copies of genetic information, making all cells in a lineage essentially clones. After making little progress at Columbia, Lederberg wrote to Edward Tatum, Ryan's post-doctoral mentor, proposing a collaboration. In 1946 and 1947, Lederberg took a leave of absence to study under the mentorship of Tatum at Yale University. Lederberg and Tatum showed that the bacterium Escherichia coli entered a sexual phase during which it could share genetic information through bacterial conjugation. With this discovery and some mapping of the E. coli chromosome, Lederberg was able to receive his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1947. 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. This process is called transduction. In 1956, M. Laurance Morse, Esther Lederberg and Joshua Lederberg also discovered specialized transduction. 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 and University of Melbourne (1957). Also in 1957, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

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

Post Nobel Prize research

In 1958, Joshua Lederberg received the Nobel Prize and moved to Stanford University, where he was the founder and chairman of the Department of Genetics. He collaborated with Frank Macfarlane Burnet to study viral antibodies.

With the launching of Sputnik in 1957, Lederberg became concerned about the biological impact of space exploration. In a letter to the National Academies of Sciences, he outlined his concerns that extraterrestrial microbes might gain entry to Earth onboard spacecraft, causing catastrophic diseases. He also argued that, conversely, microbial contamination of manmade satellites and probes may obscure the search for extraterrestrial life. He advised quarantine for returning astronauts and equipment and sterilization of equipment prior to launch. Teaming up with Carl Sagan, his public advocacy for what he termed exobiology helped expand the role of biology in NASA.

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

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

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.

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. Defense Science Board and the chairman of President Jimmy Carter's President's Cancer Panel. In 1989, he received National Medal of Science for his contributions to the scientific world. In 1994, he headed the Department of Defense's Task Force on Persian Gulf War Health Effects, which investigated Gulf War Syndrome.

During a 1986 fact finding mission of the 1979 Soviet Union epidemic of anthrax bacteria that killed 66 people in the city of Sverdlovsk, Russia now named Yakaterinberg, 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." 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.

Political and social thought

Euphenics

Euphenics, which literally means "good appearance" or "normal appearing", is the science of making phenotypic improvements to humans after birth, generally to affect a problematic genetic condition. Lederberg coined the term in the 1960s to differentiate this practice from eugenics, which was both widely unpopular at the time and he had seen as having been "perverted to justify unthinkable inhumanity". He emphasized that the genetic manipulation he described was intended to work on phenotype rather than genotype; he felt it was more feasible to positively change an individual's phenotype through gene therapies or enzyme replacement rather than attempt to change the course of evolution as eugenics proposed. Theodosius Dobzhansky, an outspoken proponent of euphenics, argued that by improving genetic conditions so that people could live normal, healthy lives, people could lessen the impact of genetic conditions, thus lowering future interest in eugenics or other kinds of genetic manipulation.

In the 1970s, considerable effort was put towards the developing field of euphenics since it was seen as a positive form of genetic engineering. One of the first publicized applications of euphenics was the use of vitamins containing folic acid during pregnancy to combat neural-tube deficiencies such as spina bifida in the 1970s. However, medical science had been using euphenic strategies years before the term itself was coined. Euphenics is used today in the medical community to more generally refer to methods of affecting a genetic condition in a positive manner through diet, lifestyle or environment, such as the use of insulin to control diabetes or installation of a pacemaker to offset a heart defect.

Awards and accolades

• The Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of the American Philosophical Society, 2002.
• The Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2006.
• In Lederberg's honor, the 87 km diameter large impact crater in Xanthe Terra on the surface of Mars was named in the year 2012.

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

• Euthenics

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates
• LCF notation

References

1. Bodmer, W.; Ganesan, A. (2011). "Joshua Lederberg. 23 May 1925 – 2 February 2008". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 57: 229–251. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2010.0024. 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. Lynn, Richard (1997). Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations. Praeger Publishers. p. 15. ISBN 9780275949174.
5. 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."
6. ^ "Joshua Lederberg - The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1958 - Biography". 1958. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
7. Schindler, Thomas E. "The Lederbergs' Stanford Years, 1959–1976: Growing Apart, the Collaborative Couple Divorce". A Hidden Legacy: The Life and Work of Esther Zimmer Lederberg. Oxford University Press: 117–129. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197531679.003.0014. ISBN 978-0-19-753167-9. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
8. Lederberg, J.; Tatum, E. L. (1946). "Gene Recombination in Escherichia Coli". Nature. 158 (4016): 558. Bibcode:1946Natur.158..558L. doi:10.1038/158558a0. PMID 21001945. S2CID 1826960.
9. Zinder, N. D.; Lederberg, J. (1952). "Genetic Exchange in Salmonella". Journal of Bacteriology. 64 (5): 679–699. doi:10.1128/JB.64.5.679-699.1952. PMC 169409. PMID 12999698.
10. Lederberg, Joshua (1948). Genetic recombination in Escherichia coli (Ph.D.). Yale University. OCLC 702748249 – via ProQuest.
11. 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.
12. Morse, M. L.; Lederberg, E. M.; Lederberg, J. (1956). "Transduction in Escherichia Coli K-12". Genetics. 41 (1): 142–156. doi:10.1093/genetics/41.1.142. PMC 1209761. PMID 17247607.
13. Morse, M. L.; Lederberg, E. M.; Lederberg, J. (1956). "Transductional Heterogenotes in Escherichia Coli". Genetics. 41 (5): 758–779. doi:10.1093/genetics/41.5.758. PMC 1209815. PMID 17247661.
14. "University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives Oral History Project (Joshua Lederberg)" (PDF). U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
15. "Sir Gustav Nossal in Forging the Path - A Find My Pathway Interview". Find My Pathway. 30 October 2018.
16. ^ Herzenberg, Leonore; Rindfleisch, Thomas; Herzenberg, Leonard (1 December 2008). "Joshua Lederberg: The Stanford Years (1958–1978)". Annual Review of Genetics. 42 (1): 19–25. doi:10.1146/annurev.genet.072408.095841. ISSN 0066-4197. PMID 18983254. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
17. Scharf, Caleb (January 21, 2016). "How the Cold War Created Astrobiology". Nautilus. Archived from the original on 2016-01-23. Retrieved 2016-01-24.
18. "Joshua Lederberg". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
19. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
20. Center for Oral History. "Joshua Lederberg". Science History Institute.
21. Center for Oral History. "Joshua Lederberg". Science History Institute.
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24. 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.
25. "The 1979 Anthrax Leak | Plague War | FRONTLINE | PBS". PBS.
26. Bud, Robert. The Uses of Life: A History of Biotechnology, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 167
27. Khanna, Pragya. Essentials of Genetics, I. K. International Pvt Ltd, 2010, p. 367
28. Lederberg, Joshua. "Molecular Biology, Eugenics and Euphenics", Nature 63(198), p. 428
29. Lederberg, Joshua. "Molecular Biology, Eugenics and Euphenics", Nature 63(198), p. 428
30. Minkoff, Eli and Baker, Pamela. Biology Today: An Issues Approach, Taylor & Francis, 2000, p. 115
31. Pai, Anna. Foundations of Genetics: A Science for Society, McGraw-Hill, 1974, p. 408
32. Burdyuzha, Vladimir. The Future of the Universe and the Future of our Civilization, World Scientific, 2000, pp. 261−263
33. Guttman, Burton. Genetics: The Code of Life, The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011, p. 101
34. Maxson, Linda and Daugherty, Charles. Genetics: A Human Perspective, W. C. Brown, 1992, p. 391
35. "Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences Recipients". American Philosophical Society. Retrieved November 26, 2011.
36. "Planetary Names: Crater, craters: Lederberg on Mars". planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov.

External links

• Joshua Lederberg Papers (1904–2008) – National Library of Medicine finding aid
• The Joshua Lederberg Papers – Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine
• Joshua Lederberg on Nobelprize.org
• In Memoriam: Joshua Lederberg (1925–2008)
• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
• Center for Oral History. "Joshua Lederberg". Science History Institute.
• Bohning, James J. (9 December 1992). Joshua Lederberg, Transcript of an Interview Conducted by James J. Bohning at Rockefeller University on 25 June, 7 July, and 9 December 1992 (PDF). Philadelphia, PA: Chemical Heritage Foundation.
• Center for Oral History. "Joshua Lederberg". Science History Institute.
• Wolfe, Audra J. (18 August 2000). Joshua Lederberg, Transcript of an Interview Conducted by Audra J. Wolfe at Rockefeller University New York City on 18 August 2000 (PDF). Philadelphia, PA: Chemical Heritage Foundation.

v t e Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
1901–1925	1901: Emil Behring 1902: Ronald Ross 1903: Niels Finsen 1904: Ivan Pavlov 1905: Robert Koch 1906: Camillo Golgi / Santiago Ramón y Cajal 1907: Alphonse Laveran 1908: Élie Metchnikoff / Paul Ehrlich 1909: Emil Kocher 1910: Albrecht Kossel 1911: Allvar Gullstrand 1912: Alexis Carrel 1913: Charles Richet 1914: Róbert Bárány 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919: Jules Bordet 1920: August Krogh 1921 1922: Archibald Hill / Otto Meyerhof 1923: Frederick Banting / John Macleod 1924: Willem Einthoven 1925
1926–1950	1926: Johannes Fibiger 1927: Julius Wagner-Jauregg 1928: Charles Nicolle 1929: Christiaan Eijkman / Frederick Gowland Hopkins 1930: Karl Landsteiner 1931: Otto Warburg 1932: Charles Scott Sherrington / Edgar Adrian 1933: Thomas Morgan 1934: George Whipple / George Minot / William Murphy 1935: Hans Spemann 1936: Henry Dale / Otto Loewi 1937: Albert Szent-Györgyi 1938: Corneille Heymans 1939: Gerhard Domagk 1940 1941 1942 1943: Henrik Dam / Edward Doisy 1944: Joseph Erlanger / Herbert Gasser 1945: Alexander Fleming / Ernst Chain / Howard Florey 1946: Hermann Muller 1947: Carl Cori / Gerty Cori / Bernardo Houssay 1948: Paul Müller 1949: Walter Hess / António Egas Moniz 1950: Edward Kendall / Tadeusz Reichstein / Philip Hench
1951–1975	1951: Max Theiler 1952: Selman Waksman 1953: Hans Krebs / Fritz Lipmann 1954: John Enders / Thomas Weller / Frederick Robbins 1955: Hugo Theorell 1956: André Cournand / Werner Forssmann / Dickinson W. Richards 1957: Daniel Bovet 1958: George Beadle / Edward Tatum / Joshua Lederberg 1959: Severo Ochoa / Arthur Kornberg 1960: Frank Burnet / Peter Medawar 1961: Georg von Békésy 1962: Francis Crick / James Watson / Maurice Wilkins 1963: John Eccles / Alan Hodgkin / Andrew Huxley 1964: Konrad Bloch / Feodor Lynen 1965: François Jacob / André Lwoff / Jacques Monod 1966: Francis Rous / Charles B. Huggins 1967: Ragnar Granit / Haldan Hartline / George Wald 1968: Robert W. Holley / Har Khorana / Marshall Nirenberg 1969: Max Delbrück / Alfred Hershey / Salvador Luria 1970: Bernard Katz / Ulf von Euler / Julius Axelrod 1971: Earl Sutherland Jr. 1972: Gerald Edelman / Rodney Porter 1973: Karl von Frisch / Konrad Lorenz / Nikolaas Tinbergen 1974: Albert Claude / Christian de Duve / George Palade 1975: David Baltimore / Renato Dulbecco / Howard Temin
1976–2000	1976: Baruch Blumberg / Daniel Gajdusek 1977: Roger Guillemin / Andrew Schally / Rosalyn Yalow 1978: Werner Arber / Daniel Nathans / Hamilton O. Smith 1979: Allan Cormack / Godfrey Hounsfield 1980: Baruj Benacerraf / Jean Dausset / George Snell 1981: Roger Sperry / David H. Hubel / Torsten Wiesel 1982: Sune Bergström / Bengt I. Samuelsson / John Vane 1983: Barbara McClintock 1984: Niels Jerne / Georges Köhler / César Milstein 1985: Michael Brown / Joseph L. Goldstein 1986: Stanley Cohen / Rita Levi-Montalcini 1987: Susumu Tonegawa 1988: James W. Black / Gertrude B. Elion / George H. Hitchings 1989: J. Michael Bishop / Harold E. Varmus 1990: Joseph Murray / E. Donnall Thomas 1991: Erwin Neher / Bert Sakmann 1992: Edmond Fischer / Edwin G. Krebs 1993: Richard J. Roberts / Phillip Sharp 1994: Alfred G. Gilman / Martin Rodbell 1995: Edward B. Lewis / Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard / Eric F. Wieschaus 1996: Peter C. Doherty / Rolf M. Zinkernagel 1997: Stanley B. Prusiner 1998: Robert F. Furchgott / Louis Ignarro / Ferid Murad 1999: Günter Blobel 2000: Arvid Carlsson / Paul Greengard / Eric Kandel
2001–present	2001: Leland H. Hartwell / Tim Hunt / Paul Nurse 2002: Sydney Brenner / H. Robert Horvitz / John E. Sulston 2003: Paul Lauterbur / Peter Mansfield 2004: Richard Axel / Linda B. Buck 2005: Barry Marshall / Robin Warren 2006: Andrew Fire / Craig Mello 2007: Mario Capecchi / Martin Evans / Oliver Smithies 2008: Harald zur Hausen / Luc Montagnier / Françoise Barré-Sinoussi 2009: Elizabeth Blackburn / Carol W. Greider / Jack W. Szostak 2010: Robert G. Edwards 2011: Bruce Beutler / Jules A. Hoffmann / Ralph M. Steinman (posthumously) 2012: John Gurdon / Shinya Yamanaka 2013: James Rothman / Randy Schekman / Thomas C. Südhof 2014: John O'Keefe / May-Britt Moser / Edvard Moser 2015: William C. Campbell / Satoshi Ōmura / Tu Youyou 2016: Yoshinori Ohsumi 2017: Jeffrey C. Hall / Michael Rosbash / Michael W. Young 2018: James P. Allison / Tasuku Honjo 2019: Gregg L. Semenza / Peter J. Ratcliffe / William Kaelin Jr. 2020: Harvey J. Alter / Michael Houghton / Charles M. Rice 2021: David Julius / Ardem Patapoutian 2022: Svante Pääbo 2023: Katalin Karikó / Drew Weissman 2024: Victor Ambros / Gary Ruvkun

• 1925 births
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• 2008 deaths
• Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
• American Nobel laureates
• American geneticists
• Jewish biologists
• American artificial intelligence researchers
• Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons alumni
• Columbia College (New York) alumni
• 1994 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery
• Foreign members of the Royal Society
• Jewish American scientists
• Jewish eugenicists
• American eugenicists
• History of genetics
• Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
• National Medal of Science laureates
• People from Montclair, New Jersey
• Phage workers
• Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
• Stanford University School of Medicine faculty
• Stuyvesant High School alumni
• University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
• Yale University alumni
• People from Washington Heights, Manhattan
• Deaths from pneumonia in New York City
• Presidents of Rockefeller University
• American astrobiologists
• Scientists from New York (state)
• Charles H. Revson Foundation
• United States Navy personnel of World War II
• United States Navy corpsmen
• Members of the National Academy of Medicine
• Time Person of the Year
• Members of the American Philosophical Society