"Neurospora" was used by Edward Tatum and George Wells Beadle in their experiments for which they won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958. Beadle and Tatum exposed "N. crassa" to x-rays, causing mutations. They then observed failures in metabolic pathways caused by errors in specific enzymes. This led them to propose the "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis that specific genes code for specific proteins. Their hypothesis was later elaborated to enzyme pathways by Norman Horowitz, also working on "Neurospora".