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Joshua Lederberg (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).Kevin Warwick. "The Joshua Lederberg Papers: Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine", Biography, Volume 24, Number 4, Fall 2001, pp. 978-982 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.
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.
Gustav Nossal views Lederberg as his mentor, describing him as "lightning fast" and "loving a robust debate."
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 bioinformatics 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 (now Yekaterinburg, Russia), 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.
In the 1970s, considerable effort was put towards the developing field of euphenics since it was seen as a positive form of genetic engineering.Pai, Anna. Foundations of Genetics: A Science for Society, McGraw-Hill, 1974, p. 408 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.Burdyuzha, Vladimir. The Future of the Universe and the Future of our Civilization, World Scientific, 2000, pp. 261−263 However, medical science had been using euphenic strategies years before the term itself was coined.Guttman, Burton. Genetics: The Code of Life, The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011, p. 101 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.Maxson, Linda and Daugherty, Charles. Genetics: A Human Perspective, W. C. Brown, 1992, p. 391
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