From nospam At isp.com Fri Dec 8 15:22:05 2006 From: nospam At isp.com (nospam@isp.com) Date: Sat Dec 9 01:35:56 2006 Subject: [Women-in-biology] (Insufficiently?) noted women in science ?? Message-ID: In light of the rest of what is reported in the below obituary, query whether the otherwise unexplained report below that when, after he received the Nobel Prize, the deceased and her then husband moved to Stanford Univ. "where she took an untenured research position" the obituary writer may be not so subtly suggesting that the deceased was not given the credit she had earned and maybe even ought have been a co-Nobelist? ------------------------------------------------- New York Times - Dec. 8, 2006 - Obituaries ESTHER LEDERBERG, 83, SCIENTIST WHO IDENTIFIED STEALTHY VIRUS, DIES Esther Lederberg, a microbiologist who identified a stealthy virus that invades bacteria and hides within its DNA, often emerging later to do its destructive work, died Nov. 11 in Stanford, Calif. She was 83. The cause was complications of congestive heart failure and pneumonia, her family said. Dr. Lederberg was also a central member of a team led by her husband, Joshua Lederberg, who shared a Nobel Prize for genetic research in 1958. In the early 1950s, while conducting experiments with E. coli bacteria, Esther Lederberg discovered a previously unreported virus that was infecting the bacteria but doing no immediate harm to the host organism. She found that the virus, which she named the lambda phage, was being transmitted through bacterial matings and ordinary genetic material. It would then remain dormant or, under certain circumstances, awaken to destroy the host. Her findings helped explain how phages pass between generations of bacteria. Her research also served as a model to help unlock the mechanism of genetic inheritance in more complex viruses. Working with her husband and others, Dr. Lederberg subsequently developed a successful method of rapidly transferring colonies of bacteria from one glass plate to another. Their method called for a velvet cloth to be placed over the colonies and then pressed onto a second plate treated with an antibiotic or a virus. The technique, called replica plating, is still in use and enables researchers to isolate bacteria that are resistant to compounds on the plates. For work in bacterial genetics, Joshua Lederberg shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958 with two other researchers, George W. Beadle and Edward L. Tatum. The next year, he and his wife moved to Stanford University, where she took an untenured research position. They divorced in 1966. >From 1978 to 1990, Joshua Lederberg was president of the Rockefeller University, the biomedical research institution in New York. Yesterday, President Bush announced that he was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation?s highest civilian award. In the 1970s and 80s, Esther Lederberg assumed a curatorial role at Stanford and directed its Plasmid Reference Center, a collection of DNA molecules derived mainly from bacteria. She retired in 1985 but continued to volunteer at the plasmid center. Esther Miriam Zimmer was born in the Bronx. She attended Hunter College and received a master?s degree from Stanford. In 1950, she earned her doctorate in bacterial genetics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Lederberg is survived by her husband of 13 years, Matthew Simon. The couple lived in Stanford. She is also survived by a brother, Benjamin Zimmer of the Bronx. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/obituaries/08lederberg.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin From isabell.witt At uni-koeln.de Mon Dec 11 05:54:46 2006 From: isabell.witt At uni-koeln.de (Isabell Witt) Date: Mon Dec 11 05:54:59 2006 Subject: [Women-in-biology] PhD fellowships in genetics and genomics Message-ID: The International Graduate School in Genetics and Functional Genomics University of Cologne, Germany 10 Fellowships 3-year Ph.D. Programme starting Fall 2007 The Graduate School offers a high-level PhD programme with research opportunities in cellular, molecular, developmental, physiological, neuro- and evolutionary genetics and genomics. Plant, animal and microbial systems are equally well represented. The three-year programme starts with a six-month rotation and course period, followed by a PhD project in one of the participating groups. Seminars and training courses complement the research work. Comprehensive support is provided throughout the programme. The programme language is English, and no tuitions apply. 10 competitive three-year fellowships (initially 1000 EUR, then 1300 EUR per month) are available. In addition, up to 10 students with self-provided funding may be selected as associates. To obtain further information please visit our website at: www.uni-koeln.de/bio-graduateschool . Applications for fall 2007 are accepted between December 20, 2006 and March 20, 2007. Candidates from Countries with no Visa requirement can apply until April 20, 2007. We highly encourage excellent female students to apply. Best regards, Isabell Witt ________________________________________________________ Dr. Isabell Witt Scientific Programme Coordinator International Graduate School in Genetics and Functional Genomics University of Cologne Z?lpicher Stra?e 47 D-50674 K?ln, GERMANY phone: +49(0)221-470-7727 fax: +49(0)221- 470-1632 isabell.witt@uni-koeln.de http://www.uni-koeln.de/bio-graduateschool -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/womenbio/attachments/20061211/4d1a1672/attachment.html