Replica Plating

This chapter describes how Esther Lederberg, in daring to re-purpose her compact makeup pad as a kind of ink stamp, developed the new Replica Plating Technique but later her husband Joshua seemed to claim sole credit for this discovery. The Lederbergs demonstrated the effectiveness of the new plating technique in their study of spontaneous bacterial mutations, using the technique to resolve a longstanding question of bacterial mutations: Did mutations occur spontaneously or was some other process of adaptation involved? While at first, Joshua defended Esther’s co-equal contribution to the invention of replica plating, in later publications, he seemed to claim sole credit, by ignoring her contributions. This is a classic example of the Matilda Effect, when a male colleague is given sole credit for an invention by unfairly ignoring the female colleague’s contribution. Some of the Lederbergs’ colleagues recognize Esther as the primary inventor of replica plating, since she had the reputation of an experimental genius; others assumed that the creative insight was Joshua’s.