M. Silverman (source code)

= M. Silverman
{c}

<M. Silverman> coauthored the 1974 demonstration that bacterial <flagella> drive motility by rotation. Antibody-mediated attachment of a flagellum to a surface made the bacterial body rotate instead, turning an otherwise difficult-to-observe motor movement into a visible cellular motion.<Flagellar rotation and the mechanism of bacterial motility by M. Silverman and M. Simon>[1974 original report, pp. 73–74]{ref}<Change in direction of flagellar rotation is the basis of the chemotactic response in Escherichia coli by S. H. Larsen and others>[Opening account of the tethered-cell demonstration]{ref}

The experiment illustrates a mechanical strategy: constrain one member of a moving assembly and observe the resulting motion of the other. It supplied evidence for a rotary motor rather than requiring flagellar propulsion to be inferred only from the swimming trajectory.