| Birth Name: | Norton David Zinder |
| Birth Date: | November 7, 1928 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, New York |
| Death Place: | New York City, New York |
| Field: | Microbiology |
| Work Institutions: | Rockefeller University |
| Alma Mater: | Columbia University (BA) University of Wisconsin–Madison (PhD) |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Joshua Lederberg |
| Doctoral Students: | Harvey Lodish Nina Fedoroff Jef Boeke |
| Known For: | Transduction Virology |
| Prizes: | Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award (1962) NAS Award in Molecular Biology (1966) AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility (1982) |
Norton David Zinder (November 7, 1928 – February 3, 2012)[1] was an American biologist famous for his discovery of genetic transduction. Zinder was born in New York City, received his A.B. from Columbia University in 1947, Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1952, and became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1969. He led a lab at Rockefeller University until shortly before his death.[2]
In 1966 he was awarded the NAS Award in Molecular Biology from the National Academy of Sciences.[3]
Working as a graduate student with Joshua Lederberg,[4] [5] [6] Zinder discovered that a bacteriophage[7] can carry genes from one bacterium to another. Initial experiments were carried out using Salmonella. Zinder and Lederberg named this process of genetic exchange transduction.
Later, Zinder discovered the first bacteriophage that contained RNA as its genetic material. At that time, Harvey Lodish (now of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research) worked in his lab.[8]
Norton Zinder died in 2012 of pneumonia after a long illness.[9]