Joshua Lederberg ForMemRS[1] (May 23, 1925 – February 2, 2008)[2] was an American molecular biologist known for his work in microbial genetics, artificial intelligence, and the United States space program.

He was 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that bacteria can mate and exchange genes (bacterial conjugation).

This included work in the NASA experimental programs seeking life on Mars and the chemistry expert system Dendral.

Inspired by Oswald Avery's discovery of the importance of DNA, Lederberg began to investigate his hypothesis that, contrary to prevailing opinion, bacteria did not simply pass down exact copies of genetic information, making all cells in a lineage essentially clones.

Lederberg and Tatum showed that the bacterium Escherichia coli entered a sexual phase during which it could share genetic information through bacterial conjugation.

Instead of returning to Columbia to finish his medical degree, Lederberg chose to accept an offer of an assistant professorship in genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

"[15] In 1958, Joshua Lederberg received the Nobel Prize and moved to Stanford University, where he was the founder and chairman of the Department of Genetics.

In a letter to the National Academies of Sciences, he outlined his concerns that extraterrestrial microbes might gain entry to Earth onboard spacecraft, causing catastrophic diseases.

"[23] After the fall of the Soviet Union and subsequent US investigations in the early 1990s, a team of scientists confirmed the outbreak was caused by a release of an aerosol of anthrax pathogen from a nearby military facility, the lab leak is one of the deadliest ever documented.

Lederberg coined the term in the 1960s to differentiate this practice from eugenics, which was both widely unpopular at the time and he had seen as having been "perverted to justify unthinkable inhumanity".

[31] One of the first publicized applications of euphenics was the use of vitamins containing folic acid during pregnancy to combat neural-tube deficiencies such as spina bifida in the 1970s.

[33] Euphenics is used today in the medical community to more generally refer to methods of affecting a genetic condition in a positive manner through diet, lifestyle or environment, such as the use of insulin to control diabetes or installation of a pacemaker to offset a heart defect.