The geneticist Joshua Lederberg (born 1925) was a pioneer in the study of bacteria and viruses to determine the chemical and molecular basis of genetics. He shared the 1958 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with two associates. His work on genetic recombination propelled the field of molecular genetics to the forefront.

Joshua Lederberg is a Nobel Prize-winning geneticist whose pioneering work on genetic recombination in bacteria helped propel the field of molecular genetics into the forefront of biological and medical research. During the first four decades of the 20th century the study of heredity focused largely on the problem of transmission of genetic elements from parent to offspring. The organisms most commonly studied were higher animals and plants, in particular the small fruit fly Drosophi la melanogaster and the domesticated corn Zea mays. In the period just preceding and following World War II, however, geneticists' attention began to shift...