Some Influential Microbial Geneticists

(and some other scientists who had an impact on this field)

The Phage Group
The Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1958 -- George Beadle, Edward Tatum, and Joshua Lederberg
Severo Ochoa and Arthur Kornberg
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1962 -- Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1965 -- Francois Jacob, Andre Lwoff, and Jacques Monod
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1969 -- Max Delbruck, Alfred Hershey, and Salvador Luria
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1968 -- Robert Holley, Har Gobind Khorana, and Marshall Nirenberg
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1978 -- Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans, and Ham Smith
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1980 -- Paul Berg, Wally Gilbert, and Fred Sanger
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1983 -- Barbara McClintock
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1993 -- Kary Mullis and Michael Smith
Oswald Avery - DNA is the genetic material
Jon Beckwith - E. coli genetics
Francis Crick - DNA is a double helix
Milslav Demerec - Salmonella genetics
Rosalind Franklin - X-ray crystallography of DNA
Felix D'Herelle - Discovery of bacteriophage
Stanley Falkow - Pathogenic microbiology
Lee Hartwell - Genetic dissection of the yeast cell cycle
William Hayes - Bacterial conjugation
Ira Herskowitz - Yeast genetics and phage genetics in his earlier life (check out the following link for a picture of his other talents)
Martha Howe - Phage Mu
Richard Losick - Bacterial development
Boris Magasanik - Microbial physiology
Kary Mullis - The tale of the discovery of PCR
Eugene Nester - Genetics of Agrobacterium
Fred Neidhardt - A pioneer of E. coli proteomics
Mark Ptashne - Regulation of the lambda lysis-lysogeny decision
Lucy Shapiro - Genetics of Caulobacter
James Watson - The double helix
Carl Woese (an interview with Woese) - Archae and microbial evolution
Charles Yanofsky - Tryptophan biosynthesis
Norton Zinder - P22 and RNA phage

I would appreciate any other suggestions for links to appropriate online biographies that might be added to this list.

Click here to return to the Microbial Genetics Home Page.

Please send any comments, suggestions, or questions to smaloy@sciences.sdsu.edu
Last modified July 15, 2002