1928-

American geneticist who, while working with Joshua Lederberg, discovered the phenomenon known as transduction, by which genetic information can be transferred from one bacterial strain to another by certain carrier viruses called bacteriophages. Bacteria infected in this way acquire new hereditary characteristics, such as drug resistance. Zinder and Lederberg published their landmark paper on genetic exchange in Salmonella in 1952. Zinder and Lederberg had developed an important technique for the rapid isolation of metabolic mutants of Eschericia coli.