Edward Lawrie Tatum (December 14, 1909 – November 5, 1975) was an American geneticist. He shared half of the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ( sv, Nobelpriset i fysiologi eller medicin) is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or ...

in 1958 with George Beadle for showing that

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...

s control individual steps in

metabolism Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run c ...

. The other half of that year's award went to Joshua Lederberg. Beadle and Tatum's key experiments involved exposing the bread mold ''

Neurospora crassa ''Neurospora crassa'' is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" in Greek, refers to the characteristic striations on the spores. The first published account of this fungus was from an infestation ...

'' to x-rays, causing

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, m ...

s. In a series of experiments, they showed that these mutations caused changes in specific

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecule ...

s involved in

metabolic pathway In biochemistry, a metabolic pathway is a linked series of chemical reactions occurring within a cell. The reactants, products, and intermediates of an enzymatic reaction are known as metabolites, which are modified by a sequence of chemical ...

s. These experiments, published in 1941, led them to propose a direct link between

s and enzymatic reactions, known as the "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis. Tatum went on to study genetics in

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...

. An active area of research in his laboratory was to understand the basis of Tryptophan biosynthesis in ''

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus '' Esc ...

''. Later, Tatum and his student Joshua Lederberg showed that ''E. coli'' could share genetic information through recombination. Tatum was born in Boulder, Colorado. He attended the college at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

for two years, and transferred to the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

, where he received his BA in 1931 and PhD in 1934. Starting in 1937, he worked at Stanford University, where he began his collaboration with Beadle. He then moved to

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1945 where he mentored Lederberg. He returned to Stanford in 1948 and then joined the faculty of Rockefeller Institute in 1957. A heavy cigarette smoker, he died in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

of heart failure complicated by chronic

emphysema Emphysema, or pulmonary emphysema, is a lower respiratory tract disease, characterised by air-filled spaces ( pneumatoses) in the lungs, that can vary in size and may be very large. The spaces are caused by the breakdown of the walls of the a ...

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tatum, Edward 1909 births Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1975 deaths American geneticists American Nobel laureates Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine People from Boulder, Colorado Stanford University Department of Biology faculty Stanford University School of Medicine faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Rockefeller University faculty

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