| Description |
1 online resource (167 pages) : illustrations (some color) |
| Contents |
An abiding affection -- The pathway to bacterial genetics -- Graduate school : mentored by the future Nobel laureates George Beadle and Edward Tatum -- The anomaly of bacterial genetics -- Love in the laboratory : a marriage of two prodigies -- Strange genetics : bacterial genes move sideways -- Clarifying the unique features of bacterial sex -- Replica plating : Esther repurposes her compact makeup sponge -- The Matilda effect : Joshua Lederberg's brilliance obscured his wife's reputation -- What she did for love : demoted from research collaborator to Nobel wife -- Behind laboratory doors. For over one hundred years of science, women participated in obscurity -- Antibiotic resistance, the horrendous consequences of bacterial sex -- The Lederbergs' Stanford years : 1959-1976 : growing apart, the collaborative couple divorce -- The central importance of E. coli and phage in the new molecular biology -- Making music and a new life -- Epilogue: A new tree of life and a new concept for the gene |
| Summary |
"Esther Zimmer Lederberg's research revealed the unique features of bacterial sex. In the decade leading up to the discovery of the DNA double helix, she collaborated with her husband, Joshua Lederberg, to establish the new field of bacterial genetics. The impressive series of achievements by team Lederberg included: the discovery of [lambda] bacteriophage; the discovery of the first plasmid known as the F-factor; the demonstration that viruses carry bacterial genes between bacteria, and fundamental properties of bacterial sex. The Lederbergs' successful collaboration earned Joshua the 1958 Nobel Prize, which he shared with two of Esther's mentors, George Beadle and Edward Tatum. Esther Lederberg's contributions, however, were overlooked by the Nobel committee, an example of institutional discrimination known as The Matilda Effect. Esther Lederberg should have been recognized for inventing Replica Plating, an elegant technique that she originated by re-purposing her compact makeup pad as a kind of ink stamp for conveniently transferring bacterial colonies from one Petri dish to another. Instead, the credit for the invention -still in use today, 70 years later-is given to her famous husband, or, at best, to Dr. and Mrs. Lederberg"-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (Oxford Scholarship Online, viewed February 11, 2022) |
| Subject |
Lederberg, Esther Zimmer, 1922-2006.
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Women bacteriologists -- United States -- Biography
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Bacterial genetics -- History
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Women in science -- United States -- History
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Bacterial genetics
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Women bacteriologists
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Women in science
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United States
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| Genre/Form |
Biographies
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History
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Biographies.
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Biographies.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
2021008264 |
| ISBN |
9780197531693 |
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0197531695 |
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0197531687 |
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9780197531709 |
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0197531709 |
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9780197531686 |
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