Deception at "Profiles In Science"
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/BB/
Replica Plating Obfuscation

The NLM website for Joshua Lederberg has made various false claims and misrepresentations. This website, associated with the Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg archive at Stanford University, has diligently researched and found many of dishonest or exaggerated claims at Joshua Lederberg's NLM website.

The following sections of this website expose factual errors, omissions, or outright deceptions related to Transduction, Plasmids and the Foundations of Biotechnology:
For further commentary on this page of Joshua Lederberg's website, click here.
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Commentary on "Transduction, Plasmids, and the Foundation of Biotechnology"

The third paragraph on this page (beginning with "During the same period in the early 1950s...") is written to give the impression that Joshua Lederberg was the only original developer of replica plating. (Take note: no citation is given.) There are three false impressions intentionally created here:

  1. The technical paper where the technique of replica plating was first published, as well as articles published in newspapers at the time, show that there were two developers of replica plating: Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg and Joshua Lederberg.
    2. .
  2. The statement that replica plating was extended to applications involving phages is misleading, as the application of replica plating to phages was entirely the work of Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg (lambda phage), not Joshua Lederberg.
    3. .
  3. References to "Esther Lederberg" (the professional name used by Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg throughout most of her life) are omitted, and she is referred to only as "Esther Zimmer". The obvious intention referring to Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg as "Esther Zimmer" is to make it appear as though all this work was done by one "Lederberg" (Joshua Lederberg), and simultaneously to exclude references to any of Esther M. Lederberg's papers, published under her professional name, Esther M. Lederberg.

This page conflates recombination of genetic material by conjugation with other means of genetic recombination, such as specialized transduction. The discovery of specialized transduction was based upon Esther M. Lederberg's discovery of lambda bacteriophage, and her work in Salmonella typhimurium.

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