Beadle, Tatum, and Lederberg are best known for their ground-breaking work linking genes and biochemistry. Together they shared the 1958 Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine.

Beadle, born in Wahoo, Nebraska, graduated from the University of Nebraska before obtaining a doctorate in genetics from Cornell University. He began his research at the California Institute of Technology where he studied the genetics of Drosophila , or the fruit fly. He traveled briefly to Paris, France, where he worked at the Institut de biologie physico-chimique. He returned to the United States in 1936 and eventually became professor of biology at Stanford University.

While at Stanford, Beadle hired Tatum, a microbiologist and biochemist, as a research assistant. Born in Boulder, Colorado, Tatum had just completed his graduate and undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin where his father was the head of the pharmacology department. He also spent some time doing postgraduate work in...