A Hidden Legacy

The Life and Work of Esther Zimmer Lederberg

Thomas E. Schindler

Describes Esther Zimmer Lederberg's significant contributions to biology
Reveals how Lederberg's legacy has been obscured by her former husband's successes
Takes readers through the events that led to the discovery of bacterial sex in the Lederberg laboratory

A Hidden Legacy

The Life and Work of Esther Zimmer Lederberg

Thomas E. Schindler

Description

It's time to honor the significant scientific contributions of Esther Zimmer Lederberg. In A Hidden Legacy, Thomas E. Schindler shares the story of this remarkable microbiologist and offers insight into why her legacy has been obscured for so long.

In the mid-20th century, microbiologist Esther Zimmer Lederberg and her then-husband, Joshua Lederberg, made a series of remarkable discoveries that contributed to the biochemical understanding of the gene. Together, they laid the foundation for molecular biology and the field of bacterial genetics. In 1958, he alone was awarded the Nobel Prize for their work. Esther's ingenuity was largely ignored and undervalued by the Nobel committee and has continued to be obscured by historians of science.

In this book, Thomas E. Schindler shares many of Esther's hidden scientific contributions and her role in the discoveries that launched her then-husband's celebrated career. A Hidden Legacy delves into how, as a couple, the Lederbergs established a new field of bacterial genetics in the decade leading up to the discovery of the DNA double helix. Their impressive series of achievements includes the discovery of: λ bacteriophage and the first plasmid, known as the F-factor; how viruses carry bacterial genes between bacteria; and fundamental properties of bacterial sex. Schindler explains how Esther's research revealed unique features of bacterial sex that are now essential to our understanding of molecular biology and evolution.

A magnificent story of a remarkable scientist, A Hidden Legacy takes readers through the process that scrambled the tree of life and offers insight into the role Esther played in uncovering these secretes of bacterial and viral genes.

A Hidden Legacy

The Life and Work of Esther Zimmer Lederberg

Thomas E. Schindler

Introduction
Chapter 1: An Abiding Affection
Chapter 2: The Pathway to Bacterial Genetics
Chapter 3: Graduate School: Mentored by the Future Nobel Laureates, George Beadle and Edward Tatum
Chapter 4: The Anomaly of Bacterial Genetics
Chapter 5: Love in the Laboratory: A Marriage of Two Prodigies
Chapter 6: Strange Genetics: Bacterial Genes Move Sideways
Chapter 7: Clarifying the Unique Features of Bacterial Sex
Chapter 8: Replica Plating: Esther Repurposes Her Compact Makeup Sponge
Chapter 9: The Matilda Effect: Joshua Lederberg's Brilliance Obscured His Wife's Reputation
Chapter 10: What She Did for Love: Demoted from Research Collaborator to Nobel Wife
Chapter 11: Behind the Laboratory Doors: For Over One Hundred Years of Science, Women Participated in Obscurity
Chapter 12: Antibiotic Resistance, the Horrendous Consequences of Bacterial Sex
Chapter 13: The Lederbergs' Stanford Years, 1959-1976: Growing Apart, the Collaborative Couple Divorce
Chapter 14: The Central Importance of E. coli and λ Phage in the New Molecular Biology
Chapter 15: Making Music and a New Life
Epilogue: A New Tree of Life and a New Concept for the Gene
Acknowledgments
Index

A Hidden Legacy

The Life and Work of Esther Zimmer Lederberg

Thomas E. Schindler

Author Information

Thomas E. Schindler, Science writer

Thomas E. Schindler is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Illinois-Chicago. After earning his PhD in microbiology and immunology, he conducted post-doctoral research at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He worked in research and development for Xytronyx, Inc., a biotechnology company, for eight years before pursuing a career as a high school chemistry teacher in Falls Village, Connecticut. Today, he is an accomplished science writer who has devoted several years to researching and writing about the neglected heroine of bacterial genetics, Esther Zimmer Lederberg.

A Hidden Legacy

The Life and Work of Esther Zimmer Lederberg

Thomas E. Schindler

Reviews and Awards

"Esther Zimmer Lederberg (1922-2006), the best known American woman microbial geneticist in the 1950s, was a pioneer and founder of her field. Her scientific discoveries remain at the center of global health policy in antibiotic resistance, but she hasn't received, as yet, recognition from the field or the general public. In this biography, Thomas E. Schindler pays tribute to Esther's obscured legacy by sharing her story and providing a detailed examination of the work she conducted in labs at Stanford, the University of Wisconsin, and Yale. Esther's lifelong passion for science and her remarkable achievements should inspire new generations of women scientists and girls to better overcome the combined gender, race, and class bias." - Pnina Geraldine Abir-Am, Historian of Science and Resident Scholar, Womens Studies Research Center, Brandeis University

"An insightful, readable biography of a remarkable scientist, her deep affection for and knowledge of the bacteria that rule our world, and her major contributions to the Nobel Prizes won by her husband and former teacher, which have never been properly acknowledged. This should be read by every woman in big-time research science, technology and medicine, and by those who love them." - Tom Shachtman, author of Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold