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Norton Zinder

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Fields
  
Name
  
Norton Zinder


Known for
  
TransductionVirology

Doctoral students
  
Norton Zinder In Memoriam Norton Zinder 19292012 Geneticist Genetics


Died
  
February 3, 2012, New York City, New York, United States

Education
  
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Columbia University


Institutions
  
Doctoral advisor
  

Norton David Zinder (November 7, 1928 – February 3, 2012) was an American biologist famous for his discovery of genetic transduction. Zinder was born in New York City, received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1969. He led a lab at Rockefeller University until shortly before his death.

Norton Zinder httpsstatic01nytcomimages20120208science

In 1966 he was awarded the NAS Award in Molecular Biology from the National Academy of Sciences.

Genetic transduction and RNA bacteriophage

Working as a graduate student with Joshua Lederberg, Zinder discovered that bacteriophage can carry genes from one bacterium to another. Initial experiments were carried out using Salmonella. Zinder and Lederberg named this process of genetic exchange transduction.

Later, Zinder discovered the first bacteriophage that contained RNA as its genetic material. At that time, Harvey Lodish (now of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research) worked in his lab.

He died in 2012 of pneumonia after a long illness.

References

Norton Zinder Wikipedia


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