PhD Candidate Wins Maurice A. Biot Fund Grant

PhD candidate Miriam F. Lipton received this year’s Maurice A. Biot Fund Grant, which supports researchers and their use of the Caltech Archives. Lipton’s research relies on analyzing how scientists who studied antibiotics and bacteriophages handled the rise of antibiotic resistance. Between 1920 and 1969 (the discovery of bacteriophages to the acknowledgement of antibiotic resistance […]

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December 8, 2021


PhD candidate Miriam F. Lipton received this year’s Maurice A. Biot Fund Grant, which supports researchers and their use of the Caltech Archives.

Lipton’s research relies on analyzing how scientists who studied antibiotics and bacteriophages handled the rise of antibiotic resistance. Between 1920 and 1969 (the discovery of bacteriophages to the acknowledgement of antibiotic resistance as a global health crisis), relatively few American scientists studied bacteriophages. The Caltech Archives house one of the largest collections of materials from such researchers.

Max Delbrück.
Attribution: MalteAhrens, Wikimedia Commons

This includes the Max Delbrück Papers which contain his correspondence with Mark H. Adams, one of the early scientific writers of bacteriophages, and Salvador Luria, another prominent bacteriophage scientist. Lipton also hopes to access Delbrück’s correspondence with the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, one of the few research facilities with a dedicated bacteriophage center. Lastly, Lipton is interested in Seymour Benzer and Emory Ellis’s paper, both of whom were prominent bacteriophage researchers.

Seymour Benzer at the laboratory phage bench during the Cold Spring Harbor bacteriophage course, summer of 1948 (Holmes 2006). (Photo courtesy of Carol Miller and the estate of Seymour Benzer)
Seymour Benzer at the laboratory phage bench during the Cold Spring Harbor bacteriophage course, summer of 1948 (Holmes 2006). (Photo courtesy of Carol Miller and the estate of Seymour Benzer)

Happy researching, Miriam!


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CATEGORIES: Graduate Students


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