Oswald Theodore Avery (1877-1955) was a distinguished bacteriologist and research physician and one of the founders of immunochemistry. He is best known for his discovery that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) serves as genetic material. The work of Avery and the members of his team at the Rockefeller Institute, observed Nobel laureate Dr. Joshua Lederberg, was "the historical platform of modern DNA research" and "betokened the molecular revolution in genetics and biomedical science generally."