Who discovered bacterial conjugation?

Bacterial conjugation was first discovered by Joshua Lederberg and Edward Tatum in 1946. They demonstrated that genetic material could be transferred between bacterial cells, challenging the previously held belief that bacteria reproduced exclusively through binary fission. Their experiments with Escherichia coli showed that certain strains could exchange genetic information, laying the foundation for modern bacterial genetics. Lederberg and Tatum’s work earned Lederberg a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958.