This site differs in a very important way from other sites: absolutely no attempt is made to censor or in any other way to rewrite history. This site will not omit any important scientist's contributions. This site will not make multiple references to the same papers with the specific object of making it appear as if many more papers have been written than is in fact the case. There is no "self-aggrandizement" as found on the web sites of some well-known scientists. No papers cited have been re-written and published with the specific purpose of omitting original scientific contributors, as is found on the web sites of some well-known scientists. Whenever a claim is made for a scientific discovery, a full citation can be found. There is at least one web site that consciously engages in all these methods.
Errors of course take place, but should errors be found, they will not be found to occur systematically (thereby establishing intention to deceive). Indeed, if any error is found in this site for Esther Lederberg, please contact the site administrator, and upon verification the error will gratefully be corrected.
Dr. Joshua Lederberg
Unfortunately, these attempts to deceive do appear on other web sites.
The J. Lederberg web site claims that J. Lederberg invented replica plating. While this is "true" technically, it is very misleading, in that it makes it appear as if only one person was involved and it ignores the relevant history. The full citation follows: Lederberg, J., Lederberg, E. M., March 1952, "Replica plating and indirect selection of bacterial mutants", Journal of Bacteriology 63(3):399-406 For further evidence, click here . Is there a reason for not providing a citation? Do you still think that only one person invented replica plating? Is there an attempt to deceive?
Is there a reason for not providing a citation? Do you still think that only one person invented replica plating? Is there an attempt to deceive?
The problem of reproducing bacterial colonies en masse in the same geometric configuration as on the original agar plate was first successfully solved by replica plating. However, there were other less-efficient forerunners to replica plating.
The development of the replica plating method may be viewed as composed of two elements:
Various methods of replicating multiple colonies had been devised prior to replica plating, such as a multipronged array (wire brush, toothpicks, etc), and paper. It might be argued as to which of Esther Lederberg or Joshua Lederberg first conceived of replica plating, but Joshua Lederberg ("Perspectives: Replica Plating and Indirect Selection of Bacterial Mutants: Isolation of Preadaptive Mutants in Bacteria by Sib Selection", by J. Lederberg [J. F. Crow and W. F. Dove, Eds.], Genetics, March 1989, 121, 395-399) explicitly states that the idea of massive replication had been conceived before either of the Lederbergs devised replica plating. Assuming that this was already known to J. Lederberg at least, then the idea underlying replica plating did not originate with J. Lederberg. However, the remaining question (the methodology of implementing replica plating) was solved solely by Esther Lederberg. Esther Lederberg first used material from her "powder puff" compact, then used a variety of cloth types that had an array of "needle-like" projections. A number of researchers bore witness to Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg actually seeking the kind of cloth that would best implement replica plating, and devising a method of sterilizing the cloth. Joshua Lederberg states in the above 'Perspective' paper that he (mentioning no one else) did the actual implementation work: however, aside from his claim, there is no one to support this claim. Joshua Lederberg did not involve himself with these details 1. To quote three(!) famous research scientists of this time:
"Who successfully implemented the technique? Here Esther at least refined the process considerably. I remember (from her and others) that she was the one who went to the fabrics store and selected velvet of the best thickness, pile, etc. to give the cleanest prints." (Quoting Dr. Allan Campbell, personal correspondence, 4/16/2007) Click here to examine Dr. Campbell's correspondence
"I do know that Esther in all likelihood was responsible for getting the technique to actually work. She emphasized to me how important it was to use a particular kind of Italian velvet (or was it velveteen actually), so in my own mind I believe she was the key person in taking the idea to actual practice." (Quoting Dr. Eugene Nester, personal correspondence, 4/19/2007 and 5/15/2007) Click here to examine Dr. Nester's correspondence
In addition, as Dr. Stanley Falkow pointed out, Esther Lederberg also explained exactly the method to be used to "sterilize" the velveteen fabric.
Esther Lederberg was the first person to try replica plating using these different types of cloths. The first successful use of replica plating using velveteen was done by Esther Lederberg. The method of replica plating using velveteen developed by Esther Lederberg, was found to be extremely useful. Hundreds of research papers have been written by scientific investigators (including Joshua Lederberg) who have used Esther Lederberg's implementation of replica plating. Thus many scientific researchers have effectively collaborated in making replica plating a very valuable tool, one that continues to be used. This confirms what is most often the case: that scientific research is a collaborative process, not a "single-handed" effort or (just as false) even an "almost single-handed" effort.
1 Esther Lederberg explicitly mentioned to me how she was asked by Josh to explain what "spontaneous" meant when used to describe a "spontaneous mutation", and that Esther had explained to Josh that it meant that "the specific causes of the mutation were unknown." (Matthew Simon) (Click here to see who really studied this question)
The NLM web site makes yet another false claim (thereby establishing repeated, sytematic distortions of the historical record). Thus this site clearly intends to deceive. The false claim is that Joshua Lederberg discovered "conjugation" in bacteria, or the "F factor" associated with pilli. Indeed, Joshua Lederberg did discover "conjugation" by pilli in bacteria, but once again, no citation is provided, and as we have already seen, this is because Joshua Lederberg was not the only researcher to make this discovery. Indeed, in a talk at Stanford University concerning the history of the fertility factor F, Esther Lederberg clearly stated that the fertility factor F was discovered solely as a consequence of her work with lambda phage. It should be recalled that the lambda phage was discovered solely by Esther Lederberg as described in detail in her 1950 paper (E. Witkin, editor). The discovery of lambda phage led directly to the discovery of the fertility factor F. Esther Lederberg explicitly states that she did consult with Josh Lederberg about her discovery of fertility factor F. Thus Josh Lederberg was indeed a useful consultant, but did not discover fertility factor F. Multiple written versions recounting the history of fertility factor F in relation to the work done by Hayes and Cavalli-Sforza are provided in the link below. Click to see the true history of F Read below what two respected researchers (Dr. Allan Campbell, and Dr. Luca Luigi Cavalli-Sforza), as well as several others have written about this into the historical record.
In addition, we find in the book "EPISOMES" by Allan M. Campbell, Harper & Row, 1969, the following:
"During the early 1950s, while Lwoff was busy bringing lysogeny into the realm of respectable science, the determination of bacterial fertility was under study in several laboratories, especially in Wisconsin by the Lederbergs and in London by Hayes." page 6 (Note "both Lederbergs".)
"About 1950 Esther Lederberg discovered that certain isolates of Escherichia coli K-12 which had survived heavy doses of ultraviolet radiation were lysed by some product of the parent culture. This product proved to be a bacteriophage for which the parent strain was lysogenic." page 15
Also, we find the following statement on page 6 of "The Bacteriophage Lambda" edited by A. T. Hershey, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1971: "Lambda went unnoticed until Esther Lederberg (1951) found a derivative of K12 that had lost its prophage as an incidental result of mutagenic treatment with ultraviolet light, and had thus become sensitive to infection with lambda." Esther Lederberg made the initial discovery of λ-phage is well known. For example, François Jacob noted this too: "To find out, for example, whether the prophage was located in the cytoplasm of the bacterium or was, on the contrary, connected with its genetic material. Not long before, Josh Lederberg's wife, Esther, had found that the colon bacillus, whose conjugation had been observed, was lysogenic; that it harbored a prophage called 'lambda.'" ("The Statue Within: An Autobiography", by François Jacob, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1988, p. 260) Additional supporting documentation: "Chance intervened still further in the development of bacterial genetics by placing a laboratory refrigerator containing a vial of K12 within convenient reach of the workbench of Lederberg's first wife, Esther, at a strategic moment in her career as a scientist. On progeny of the original Stanford isolate that she happened to pick off the refrigerator shelf she found bacteriophage that no one had seen before. She called it lambda phage (lambda is the Greek letter L), having no suspicion of the role it would later play in the construction of hybrid DNA molecules not known to exist in nature." also "Kaiser had spent most of his professional life in the 'phage school' of genetics. He had done landmark work on lambda phage that Dr. Esther Lederberg had found attached to the K12 strain of E. coli." ("Recombinant DNA: The Untold Story", by Lear, John, Crown Publishers, New York, 1978, pp. 18, 39) The last bit of supporting information is that Esther realized through Larry Morse's work that Lambda could be induced as a heterogenate (partially integrated into the bacterial chromosome). Click here to see evidence Attempts have been made to extend the original 1951 discovery (by Esther Lederberg) of lambda phage to make it appear as research done by J. Lederberg two years later (at a time when J. Lederberg worked under the direction of Esther Lederberg). Of course, these claims have no basis in fact. Indeed, what are the facts? Click here to find the facts. Why might these false claims be made 2? The following answers this question.
"Importance of Lambda 3 Research on bacteriophage lambda has had far-reaching effects on the development of molecular genetics. The lambda system provided one of the first detailed connections between genetics and DNA structure (Hershey, 1971). It provided the best model for studying the molecular basis of genetic recombination. Studies on the immunity system in lambda were a key element in the development of the repressor or negative control model of gene regulation by Jacob and Monod (see Section 10.10). Research on restriction and modification 4 using lambda (see Section 6.15) led to the discovery of restriction enzymes and, eventually, to their use in genetic engineering (see Chapter 11). Lambda has become one of the principal vectors in recombinant DNA research. Phage lambda was the first rather complex virus whose behavior could be really understood at the molecular level. Numerous proteins of lambda have been isolated and purified, and their sequences have been determined. The complete DNA base sequence, 48,513 base pairs, has been determined. Many ideas from lambda research have found their way into studies on the molecular genetics of eucaryotes. " Also: Lambda was also of great value in illucidating bacterial transduction 5 as well as the development of the operon 6 . 2 "...we had anticipated that the provirus for λ would behave as a genetic unit but Dr. Esther Lederberg's first crosses were quite startling in their implication that the prophage segregated as a typical chromosomal marker (34).", "Les Prix Nobel en 1958", Stockholm, Imprimerie Royal P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1959, p. 181. Note that this quote explicitly refers to Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg's first crosses, thus is discussed in the first Lambda paper ever published. However, reference 34 falsely cites a later paper by Lederberg, E. M., and J. Lederberg written two years later in 1953! The first paper was by Esther Lederberg (sole author), and was published in 1951. Note that here, this deception extends beyond the numerous deceptions found on the NLM web site for Dr. J. Lederberg, as this deception appears during the speech given at the award of the Nobel Prize itself. 3 "The Emergence of Bacterial Genetics", by Thomas D. Brock, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1990, p. 185 4 ibid., p. 326 5 ibid., p. 203 6 ibid., pp. 299 - 303
"Her [Esther's] name is to be found, for instance, on the papers that have shown: 1) for he first time by rigorous experiment, that resistant bacterial arise by spontaneous mutation. Earlier proofs were indirect, and only the introduction of the replica plating method, which has since become so poplular in bacteriology, could give uneqivocal and direct proof of this fundamental fact; 2) the first episome isolated in bacteria, F, responsible for sex, which has been followed by so many others; 3) the first proof that a bacterial virus, lambda, could be associated with the bacterial chromosome by a process of crossing over; 4) the capacity of lambda to transduce the chromosomal segment with which it is associated; 5) the proof that streptomycin resistance can act as a suppressor, ..... she [Esther] has not been credited with as much of the credit as she really deserved." Luca Cavalli-Sforza
The following is an interesting additional, historical note: "Only Hayes, at that early point, interpreted the discovery aright. When bacteria conjugated, he said, they did not pool their genes, as [Joshua] Lederberg supposed, but rather one, the donor, or male, passed a copy of its genes, often only part of them, to the recipient, or female. Oddly, the ability to be a donor was something a male bacterium could pass to a female: bacterial masculinity was itself a genetic element that could be transmitted by conjugation. Hayes discovered not just bacterial sex but bacterial sex change. He called the genetic element the sex factor, often written F for short. The bacterium that got it was F+. "The Eighth Day of Creation: The Makers of the Revolution in Biology", by Judson, H. F., Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979, p. 386 In fact, it was Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg that assigned the notation "F", and this was short for "Fertility Factor", not the "sex factor". Click to see this note in Esther Lederberg's hand writing
For a discussion of questions of honesty, exaggeration, misrepresentation and gender discrimination with regard to bacterial genetics, plasmids, phages, etc., click here.
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© Matthew Simon, 2006 - 2008