Alfred Day Hershey papers

Record Group

Identifier: UA-10.3.118

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of newspapers, magazines, MSU serials with articles about the work of Hershey, programs from the MSU commemoration of Hershey, announcement of seminars given by Hershey and manuscripts he wrote including his Ph.D. thesis and his Nobel Lecture of December 12, 1969.

Dates

Creation: 1934 - 1970

Creator

Hershey, A. D. (Alfred Day), 1908- (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish material from this collection must be obtained from University Archives & Historical Collections, Michigan State University.

Biographical Note

Alfred Day Hershey was the first alumnus of Michigan State University to receive a Nobel Prize. He was born on December 4, 1908 and entered MSU in 1926. He received his B.S. in microbiology in 1930 and Ph.D. in chemistry in 1934. He was a member of the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri until 1950. In 1950, Hershey joined the Carnegie Institute at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, where he later became director of the Genetics Research Unit.

Hershey shares the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Dr. Max Delbruck and Dr. Salvador Lucia for their work centering on bacteriophage, a type of virus that infects bacteria rather than ordinary cells. Their research directly affects the treatment of various virus diseases. On May 8, 1970, MSU conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Medical Science upon Hershey.