Osborn Memorial Laboratories, Yale University
(formerly known as Osborn Botanical Laboratory)
Plaque commemorating the 1946 research on bacterial genetic recombination that resulted in a 1958 Nobel Prize shared by Joshua Lederberg and Ed. Tatum (ignoring all non-Yale alumni, such as the third person who shared this Nobel Prize, George Beadle, and also omitting the research contributions of Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg)
The Yale University Alumni Association was contacted
with news of Esther's death, and a request made for the Alumni Association to publish
an obituary for Esther (given the significant research that she had done at Yale). The reply given
was that "We only publish obituaries for people who have taught here or who are alumnis." When it
was then explained that there was a plaque on the Yale campus commemorating this important research,
the reply by this representative of Yale was that they knew of no such plaque. There was no further
expression of interest.
As far as Yale was concerned, the above plaque did not exist, and even the Nobel Prize-winning research
of their alumnus, Joshua Lederberg, and their former staff member, Ed. Tatum, was unknown.
Esther's view proved to be prescient: Not only was her research at Yale already forgotten, but
the research and the Nobel Prize, as well as the recipients of the Nobel Prize, were also already
forgotten!
