Charles M. Steinberg (1932 – September 17, 1999) was an immunobiologist and permanent member of the Basel Institute for Immunology. He was a former student of Max Delbrück. Notably he hosted Richard Feynman at Caltech when the physicist studied molecular biology, leading Feynman to remark that Charlie was “...the smartest guy I know”. He was instrumental in the discovery of V(D)J recombination, bacteriophage genetics as part of the phage group and co-discoverer of the amber-mutant of the T4 bacteriophage that led to the recognition of stop codons.