Tatum, Edward Lawrie (1909-1975)

US microbiologist. For his work on biochemical genetics, he shared the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with his co-workers George Beadle and Joshua Lederberg. Tatum was born in Boulder, Colorado, and studied at the University of Wisconsin. He worked with Beadle at Stanford 1937-41 and with Lederberg at Yale, where he became professor 1946. He ended his career at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1957. Beadle and Tatum used X-rays to cause mutations in bread mould, studying particularly the changes in the enzymes of the various mutant strains. This led them to conclude that for each enzyme there is a corresponding gene. From 1945, with Lederberg, Tatum applied the same technique to bacteria and showed that genetic information can be passed from one bacterium to another. The discovery that a form of sexual reproduction can occur in bacteria led to extensive use of these organisms in genetic research