Joshua Lederberg
Joshua Lederberg (* May 23, 1925 in Montclair, New Jersey; † February 2nd 2008 in New York) was an American molecular biologist and geneticist.
Career
Joshua Lederberg had to 1944 studied at Columbia University and earned his doctorate degree in 1947 ( Ph.D.) at Yale University with Edward Tatum. He married the molecular biologist and geneticist Esther Lederberg and developed jointly with it the so-called Lederberg method to transfer a bacterial colony from a petri dish in another. From 1947 to 1959 he was a professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, then at Stanford University in Palo Alto ( California). In 1978 he returned to New York and became 5th president of Rockefeller University. After his retirement in 1990 he returned to his lab and devoted himself to continue their own research projects and the training of students.
Research Topics
In 1952 Lederberg, based on the research of his wife Esther Lederberg, demonstrate together with his student Norton Zinder, that bacteriophage can transfer parts of a bacterial genome to another bacterium ( transduction ).
In the same year he introduced the term plasmid and for the present in addition to the main chromosomal circular DNA. In addition, he developed a method for replica plating.
1960 coined the term exobiology Joshua Lederberg.