Evelyn Witkin Collection

The following is another post in our series highlighting the collections that are being processed through the NHPRC Basic Processing Grant.

Witkin and A.H. Sparrow at the 1947 CSH Symposium

Evelyn M. Witkin is an American geneticist whose research has been widely influential in the areas of DNA mutagenesis and DNA repair.

The Evelyn Witkin Collection at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory consists of three series including Dr. Witkin’s professional correspondence with Nobelist Barbara McClintock, Joshua Lederberg, and Ruth Sager among others. There is a complete collection of her personal reprints as well as historical documents related to her work on the “SOS Response”.

 Witkin’s connection to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is through her work at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Department of Genetics where she was a staff scientist from 1945 until 1955. During her time at the Department of Genetics, she isolated a UV radiation-resistant mutant of E. coli, the first time this work had been done. 

Dr. Witkin is a frequent visitor to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.  Dr. Witkin participated in the CSHL Oral History Project in and her interview can be viewed on the Oral History Office website at http://library.cshl.edu/oralhistory/speaker/evelyn-witkin/. 

- C.C., Archivist