Tatum, Edward Lawrie (1909–1975)

US microbiologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1958 for the discovery that genes regulate precise chemical effects. He shared the prize with his co-workers George Beadle and Joshua Lederberg.

Tatum was born in Boulder, Colorado, and studied at the University of Wisconsin. He worked with Beadle at Stanford in 1937–41 and with Lederberg at Yale, where he became professor in 1946. He ended his career at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1957.

Beadle and Tatum used X-rays to cause mutations in bread mould, studying particularly the changes in the enzymes of the various mutant strains. This led them to conclude that for each enzyme there is a corresponding gene. From 1945, with Lederberg, Tatum applied the same technique to bacteria and showed that genetic information can be passed from one bacterium to another. The discovery that a form of sexual reproduction can occur in bacteria led to extensive use of these organisms in genetic research.