Influence
Dodge never developed a larger program involving an extensive study of spontaneous and induced mutations or chromosome mapping. In fact, he regarded his research on Neurospora as an "extra", carried on while pursing his official duties as a plant pathologist. Nevertheless, Dodge's investigations laid the foundation for the use of Neurospora in the investigation of genetics and biochemical genetics on a world-wide basis. In a letter to Dodge on November 1, 1959, George Beadle wrote:
Without your pioneer work, those of us who have made use of Neurospora never could have done what we did. Neurospora has been good to many of us and it is your baby more than anyone else's. Thanks again for giving it to genetics.
In his own Nobel Lecture, Edward L. Tatum wrote:
I shall not enumerate the factors involved in our selection of this organism for the production of chemical or nutritionally deficient mutants, but must take this opportunity of reiterating our indebtedness to the previous basic finds of a number of investigators. Foremost among these, to B. O. Dodge for this establishment of this ascomycete as a most suitable organism for genetics studies; and to C. C. Lindegren, who became interested in Neurospora through T. H. Morgan, a close friend of Dodge.
Another prominent scientist inspired directly by B. O. Dodge was Esther Lederberg, who worked with him at the New York Botanical Garden as an intern while she was an undergraduate at Hunter College, Lederberg (née Esther Miriam Zimmer) worked with Dodge under three scholarships between 1941 and 1942, conducting research in heterokaryosis in Neurospora tetrasperma. She wrote her Master's thesis on Neurospora crassa and published two papers on Neurospora crassa before beginning her studies of the bacterium Escherichia coli, and her highly influential development of replica plating, the discovery of fertility factor F (inheritable sex change due to viral infection), temperate lambda bacteriophage, and her pioneering work in transduction.
Read more about this topic: Bernard Ogilvie Dodge
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