Lambda Phage - Discovery

Discovery

Lambda phage was discovered by Esther Lederberg in 1950 when it was noticed that a colony produced by replica plating was "nibbled and plaqued". Lambda phage has been used heavily as a model organism, and has been a rich source for useful tools in microbial genetics, and later in molecular genetics. Uses include its application as a vector for the cloning of recombinant DNA; the use of its site-specific recombinase (int) for the shuffling of cloned DNAs by the gateway method; and the application of its Red operon, including the proteins Red alpha (also called 'exo'), beta and gamma in the DNA engineering method called recombineering.

Read more about this topic:  Lambda Phage

Famous quotes containing the word discovery:

    We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son’s future are counting on me.
    Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)

    There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
    Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)