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Who were they?
Who were they?
Salvador E. Luria (right) and Max Delbrück (left) were scientists based at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. It was here where they started pursuing the mystery behind genes through the study of a subset of viruses known as phages and how they infected bacteria. It was this research that led them to becoming recipients of the Nobel Prize along with Hershey in 1969 (Cold Spring Harbor Lab—125 Years).
Luria and Delbrück's Findings
Luria and Delbrück's Findings
Luria and Delbrück's experiment on random mutation and fluctuations supported the hypothesis that phage-resistant mutations had a constant probability of occurring in each cell division. This led to the rejection of the idea that bacteria would only become resistant post-exposure to the virus. In other words, they proved that spontaneous mutations can occur without an external catalyst. This discovery led to them winning the 1969 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology alongside Alfred Hershey (Murray 2016).
References
References
Cold Spring Harbor Lab—125 Years. [accessed 2023 Nov 29]. https://www.cshl.edu/experienceCSH/discoveries/.
Murray A. 2016. Salvador Luria and Max Delbrück on random mutation and fluctuation tests. Genetics, [accessed 2023 Nov 4];202(2), 367–368. https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.115.186163.
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