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R: REDACTED MATERIAL s #W J\T]j\/\TS FROM THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY 1230, YOkF: AVENUE. N 611: Y'O Ri:. ":fti' YORK 10021 CONTACT Fulvio Bardossi or Judith N. Schwartz Public Iriforalation 212': 360-1261 BIOGRAPHY OF PRESIDENT JOSHUA LEDERBERG Joshua Lederberg, president of The Rockefeller University, is a distinguished geneticist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work on, the organization of genetic material in bacteria. As president of The Rockefeller University, a post which he assumed on July 1, 1978, Dr. Lederberg is responsible for overseeing the research and educational programs-of one of the world's.leading scientific institutions. Founded in 1901 by John D. Rockefeller as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, it became a graduate university in 1953 granting the Ph.D. degree in the biological and physical sciences. Sixteen Nobel Prizes -- including seven since 1972 -- have been awarded to scientists associated with The Rockefeller. Dr. Lederberg., who was born in Montclair•, New. Jersey, and attended Stuyvesant High School in New York, received his B.A. degree from Columbia College in 19-44. After two years at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, he took a leave of a absence to-do research with the late Edward L. Tatrum at Yale University. He never returned to medical school. At first with . I I -more-

R: REDACTED MATERIAL 01 . LEDERBERG -2- Tatum, and later with other coworkers, Lederberg pioneered in the field of bacterial genetics. While at Yale, where he received his Ph.D. in 1947, he discovered the mechanism of genetic recombi:nation in bacteria, demonstrating for the first time that a form of sexual reproduction occurs in these microorganisms. Prior to this discovery, scientists had. known little about bacterial genetics, and many had even doubted that bacteria possessed a genetic mec2aanismisimilar to that of higher organisms. Because of their simple stzucture and rapid growth, bacteria now, afford geneticists a fruitful field for study. Later, at the wniversity of Wisconsin, Lederberg and his•tthen student Dr. Norton Zinder, now a professor at The Rockefeller, showed that bacterial genetic material was exchanged not only by conjugation (when the entire complement of chromosomes is transferred from one bacterial cell to another) but also by transduction (when only fragments are transferred).. They did this by introducing bits of genetic material into the bacterial body and found that they became part of the genetic material of the bacterial cell, thereby altering its constitution. This was among the first demonstrations of the manipulation of any organism's genetic material. Eleven years later in R- at the age of tL he was named a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work and subsequent research on bacterial genetics. The other recipients of the prize that year were•Dr. Tatum and Dr. George Beadle for their discovery at Stanford; in the 1940s that genes act by regulating specific chemical processes. -more-

LEDERBERG -3- From 1947 to•1959, Dr. Lederberg was professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin and served two years (1957-59) as chairman of a new Department of Medical Genetics. iin 1959:, he joined the faculty of Stanford's School of Medicine, where he likewise served as.cYaairman of the Department of Genetics. Be also held the titles of professor of biology and. professor of computer science. For four years., beginning in 1974, he was principal investigator and chairman of the executive committee of the Stanford University Medical Experimental Computer-Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (SUMEX-AIM) project and continues as chairman. of the executive conmittee. F- 7- on several government 'Dr. Lederberg has been active advisory committees and boards dealing with problems of mental health and,retardation~. f2- e. , and is on,the board of trustees of the Natural Resources Defense Council which is concerned with environmental health,. Dr_ Lederberg played+ an active role in the Mariner and Viking missions to Mars., sponsored, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He was a consultant to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the successful negotiation of the treaty on biological weapons disarmament. He is a director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Calif., and of the Institute for Scientific Information in Philad'elphia. He i.s also. chairman of the board of Annual Reviews of Palo Alto, Calif., a cooperative non-profit scientific publisher. I a -more-

R: REDACTED MATERIAL z IIAEDERBERG -4- Dr. Lederberg has been awarded•honorary Doctor of Science degrees by Yale, Columbia, University of Wisconsin, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and an honorary X.D. by the University of Turin, Italy. His interest in improving communications among, scientists, the general public, and government policy makers has led: Dr. Lederberg to write extensively for lay audiences, including a.series of columns, distributed by the Washington Post Syndicate, on the social impact of scientific programs. RF-DACTED :. October, 1978