Alfred Day Hershey was born December 4, 1908, in Owosso, Michigan, a small town near the state capital, to Robert D. and Alma (Wilber) Hershey. He graduated from Owosso High School. He attended Michigan State College, later renamed Michigan State University, where he received a B.S. in Chemistry in 1930 and a Ph.D. in Bacteriology in 1934.
In 1943, Hershey was contacted by the German physicist, Max Delbruck, who was working at Vanderbilt University. Delbruck had read Hershey's papers on phage research, and their interests coincided. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. Delbruck invited Hershey to join in his experiments with the Italian biologist, Salvador Luria. These three men would become part of the American Phage Group, sometimes called the Phage Church. The group met during the summer at Cold Spring Harbor to conduct research and discuss their progress.
In 1945, Hershey married Harriet Davidson. They have one son, Peter.
During 1946, Hershey and Delbruck worked together on an experiment where they infected a bacteria with two strains of bacteriophages. They found that the subsequent generations had infective natures that differed from either parent. This was an early example viral genetic recombination.
In 1950, Hershey accepted a staff position at Carnegie's Department of Genetics at Cold Spring Harbor. In the now famous blender experiment of 1952 (using a Waring kitchen blender), with his research assistant, geneticist Martha Chase, Hershey showed that the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) from an infecting phage contained the genetic information to produce more phage in a bacterial cell. This was early verification of the link between DNA and heredity. It is interesting to note that Hershey gave credit to his research assistant, a character trait that set him apart from many contemporary scientists. A more traditional practice was to give credit "up" the hierarchical ladder.
In 1962, Hershey became Director of the Genetics Research Unit of the Carnegie Institution at Cold Spring Harbor, and he spent the remainder of his productive career there.
As described by his colleague, Franklin W Stahl:
The logic of Al's analyses was impeccable. He was original, but the relevance of his work to the interests of the rest of us was always apparent; he contributed to and borrowed from the communal storehouse of understanding, casual about labeling his own contributions but scrupulous about attributing
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