September first of the Nobel Year: 3000 confidential forms are sent out to selected professors at universities around the world.
Although we can only speculate, the professors at the University of Wisconsin may have been responsible for nominating Joshua Lederberg instead of Esther Lederberg or both of them simultaneously. However, since these forms are confidential we cannot know for sure.
Recommendations for final candidate nominations happen in the following September, the Nobel committee submits their report with recommendations of who should be the final candidates to the Nobel Assembly.
Laureates are nominated in October. The Nobel Assembly votes them in by way of a majority vote. The decision is final and there is no appeal process. Only up to three people can be recognized on each Nobel Prize.
First female winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was Gerty Theresa Cori in 1947.
J. Lederberg received his prize in 1958, therefore there was precedent for women winning in the field, albeit very slim. This raises more questions as to why E. Lederberg was left off the Ballot for the Nobel.
Only 3 people can be recognized on each Nobel Prize, therefore we would like to know what went into the process of choosing J. Lederberg over E. Lederberg, as they were co-authors on the 3 papers that may have influenced considerations for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958.
The 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Joshua Lederberg, George Beadle and Edward Tatum. One half of the prize went jointly to Tatum and Beadle "for their discovery that genes act by regulating definite chemical events" and the other half went to Joshua "for his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria" (The Nobel Prize c2021).
Joshua was Esther's husband, and Beadle and Tatum were Esther's supervisors while she completed her master's degree at Stanford. Tatum was also Joshua's supervisor during the completion of his Ph.D. at Yale (Ferrell 2018). Therefore, Esther was in close collaboration with all of the winners, and her scientific work was interwoven with theirs (Ferrell 2018). As Schaechter (2016) states, as long as Esther was Mrs. Lederberg, the success of her and Joshua's joint work was attributed to her husband. While Joshua was awarded The Nobel Prize for his discovery of sexuality in bacteria, and not for Esther's fertility factor F, implicit in this award was recognition for the development of replica plating and research based upon this methodology. Many sources credit Esther for the development of replica plating, however Esther was mysteriously absent from the accolades during Joshua's acceptance of the award (Ferrell 2018; Schaechter 2016). He referred to the replica plating method and fertility factor F, but failed to mention Esther's key role in both discoveries (Schaechter 2016). She was not mentioned at all in his Banquet Acceptance Speech (Nobel Prize Organization c2021) .
In Joshua's Nobel Lecture, she was mentioned once:
“In accord with BURNET'S early predictions, we had anticipated that the provirus for λ would behave as a genetic unit, but Dr. ESTHER LEDERBERG'S first crosses were quite startling in their implication that the prophage segregated as a typical chromosomal marker. This was shown quite unambiguously by the segregation of lysogenicity versus sensitivity from persistent heterozygous cells, a test which bypassed the then controversial details of fertilization” (Nobel Prize Organization c2021).
Esther's 1950 discovery of lambda phage, which she had published as the sole author, is the only mention Joshua gives of her work (Schaechter 2016). Because she was the sole author, he likely felt obligated to acknowledge her. Although Esther may not have been nominated on the ballot, it would have been respectful and of common decency for Joshua to acknowledge the important contributions of his wife and laboratory partner that ultimately helped him advance his research to the point that it was worthy of a Noble Prize.
Esther's exclusion from the Nobel Prize and her husband's failure to acknowledge her contributions that aided his success only further exacerbated the marginalization she felt as a woman scientist. There is a possibility that if Esther had shared the Noble Prize with her husband, or even if he had better recognized her significant contributions that led to his success, then people would have finally begun to recognize her as the capable scientist she was.
We also speculate whether some of her discoveries such as lambda phage, fertility factor F or replica plating may have warranted a Nobel Prize, but were most likely never considered due to the prevalent gender discrimination of the time. If only it were possible to travel back in time and be a fly on the wall. One thing is certain, Esther Lederberg never received the credit she deserved (Ferrell 2018; Schaechter 2016).