Brief Chronology

  • 1925 --Joshua Lederberg born May 23 in Montclair, New Jersey, to Zvi Hirsch Lederberg, a rabbi, and Esther Goldenbaum Lederberg, a homemaker
  • 1938-41 --Attended Stuyvesant High School, a selective science and technology school in Manhattan
  • 1941-44 --Undergraduate studies at Columbia University, leading to a BA in zoology. Examined genetics of Neurospora (a common bread mold) with Professor Francis J. Ryan
  • 1943-45 --Military service in the U.S. Naval Reserve's V-12 program, a compressed premedical and medical curriculum, at St. Albans Naval Hospital, Long Island
  • 1944-46 --Medical Student at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and research assistant in Professor Ryan's zoology laboratory
  • 1946-47 --Research Fellow at Yale University with Professor Edward L. Tatum. Discovered mating and genetic recombination in the bacterium Escherichia coli , making E. coli available as an experimental organism for genetic research. Received his PhD from Yale with a thesis on his discovery
  • 1947-59 --Professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin. Conducted research in the genetics of E. coli and Salmonella as well as on antibody formation. Discovered and named plasmids, particles of DNA in bacterial cells that replicate separately from chromosomal DNA
  • 1950-98 --Member of various panels of the President's Science Advisory Committee
  • 1951 --Discovered, with Norton Zinder, the exchange of genetic material in bacteria through viral vectors, a process he called transduction. Their discovery has important applications in bacterial genetics and biotechnology
  • 1957 --Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
  • 1957-59 --Founder and chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of Wisconsin
  • 1958 --Shared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Tatum and George W. Beadle "for his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria"
  • 1958-77 --Investigated the possibility of life on other planets and of interplanetary contamination as a member of several National Academy of Sciences and NASA committees on space biology, and as organizer of the Instrumentation Research Laboratory at Stanford
  • 1959-78 --Founder and chairman of the Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine. Began research in the genetics of Bacillus subtilis (1959) and in splicing and recombining DNA (1969)
  • 1961-62 --Member of President John F. Kennedy's Panel on Mental Retardation
  • 1964 --Together with computer scientist Edward A. Feigenbaum Lederberg launched DENDRAL, a computer program designed to emulate inductive reasoning in chemistry and medicine through Artificial Intelligence
  • 1966-71 --Published "Science and Man," a weekly column on science, society, and public policy in the Washington Post
  • 1969-72 --Consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during negotiations for the Biological Weapons Convention in Geneva
  • 1973-78 --Helped establish SUMEX-AIM, a nationwide time-share computer network hosting biomedical research projects
  • 1976 --U.S. Viking I and Viking II spacecraft explored Mars with the help of instruments for soil analysis designed by Lederberg and his associates at the Instrumentation Research Laboratory. The spacecraft find no clear signs of life
  • 1978-90 --President of Rockefeller University in New York City, a graduate university specializing in biomedical research
  • 1979-81 --Advisor to President Jimmy Carter on cancer research as chairman of the President's Cancer Panel
  • 1979-2008 --Trustee of the Sackler Medical School, Tel-Aviv University, Israel, the Carnegie Corporation, New York, and other academic, research, and environmental institutions. Member of the U.S. Defense Science Board, which advises the Secretary of Defense on scientific developments affecting the military and national security
  • 1989 --Awarded the National Medal of Science by President George H. W. Bush
  • 1990-2008 --Professor emeritus and Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Scholar at Rockefeller University
  • 1994 --Headed Defense Department Task Force on Persian Gulf War Health Effects, which concluded that there is insufficient epidemiological evidence for a coherent Gulf War "syndrome"
  • 2005 --Lederberg continued to conduct laboratory research on bacterial and human genetics, and to advise government and industry on global health policy, biological warfare, and the threat of bioterrorism
  • 2006 --Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush
  • 2008 --Died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York, February 2