This essay considers how scholarly approaches to the development of molecular biology have too often narrowed the historical aperture to genes, overlooking the ways in which other objects and processes contributed to the molecularization of life. From structural and dynamic studies of biomolecules to cellular membranes and organelles to metabolism and nutrition, new work by historians, philosophers, and STS scholars of the life sciences has revitalized older issues, such as the relationship of life to matter, or of physicochemical inquiries to (...) biology. This scholarship points to a novel molecular vista that opens up a pluralist view of molecularizations in the twentieth century and considers their relevance to current science. (shrink)
The postwar investments by several governments into the development of atomic energy for military and peaceful uses fuelled the fears not only of the exposure to acute doses of radiation as could be expected from nuclear accidents or atomic warfare but also of the long-term effects of low-dose exposure to radiation. Following similar studies pursued under the aegis of the Manhattan Project in the United States, the “genetics experiment” discussed by scientists and government officials in Britain soon after the war, (...) consisted in large-scale low-dose irradiation experiments of laboratory animals to assess the effects of such exposures on humans. The essay deals with the history of that project and its impact on postwar genetics. It argues that radiobiological concerns driven by atomic politics lay at the heart of much genetics research after the war and that the atomic links are crucial to understand how genetics became an overriding concern in the late 20th century. (shrink)
Microstudies and big picture accounts are often counterposed. This paper investigates the supposed dichotomy between the two historiographical approaches. In particular it investigates how the discussions are reflected in the historiography of molecular biology and the special questions posed by the disciplinary context. Taking inspiration from the microhistory tradition as exemplified by the works of Carlo Ginzburg, Jacques Revel, and David Sabean among others, the paper highlights the heuristic value of microstudies to reconstruct the multiple contexts that link apparently small (...) events with broader structures. In a parallel fashion, the paper argues for using microstudies to open up the history of molecular biology to other fields of study and thus moving beyond the confines of the disciplinary framework. Such an approach does not dismiss the search for big pictures. Yet rather than opposing big pictures to microstudies, it sees microstudies as a valid way to gain new and broad vistas. (shrink)
A common account sees the human genome sequencing project of the 1990s as a “natural outgrowth” of the deciphering of the double helical structure of DNA in the 1950s. The essay aims to complicate this neat narrative by putting the spotlight on the field of human chromosome research that flourished at the same time as molecular biology. It suggests that we need to consider both endeavors – the human cytogeneticists who collected samples and looked down the microscope and the molecular (...) biologists who probed the molecular mechanisms of gene function – to understand the rise of the human genome sequencing project and the current genomic practices. In particular, it proposes that what has often been described as the “molecularization” of cytogenetics could equally well be viewed as the turn of molecular biologists to human and medical genetics – a field long occupied by cytogeneticists. These considerations also have implications for the archives that are constructed for future historians and policy makers. (shrink)
In the 1930s, the Otomi people living north of Mexico City became a model population for addressing the problems of poverty and "backwardness" of the Indian population. Mexican physiologists working in the capital chose the Otomies not least because they lived in easy reach of their laboratories. A collecting trip could be managed in a day and samples safely handled and promptly transferred to laboratory conditions. Following the Mexican teams that were funded by the newly created Autonomous Department of Indigenous (...) Affairs, French researchers descended on the Otomies to study their metabolism, using the networks and infrastructures put in place by their local colleagues. Their investigations, aimed at establishing... (shrink)
Interview with Sydney Brenner.Soraya de Chadarevian - 2009 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40 (1):65-71.details
In this brief essay, we combine biological, historical, philosophical and anthropological perspectives to ask anew the question about the nature of the virus. How should we understand Sars-CoV-2 and why does it matter? The argument we present is that the virus undermines any neat distinction between the natural and the human-made, the biological and the social. Rather, to understand the virus and the pandemic we need to understand both as intimately connected to our own social and historical condition. What started (...) as a reflection on the nature of the virus thus turns into a reflection on the human condition as refracted in this pandemic or an anthropology of the virus. (shrink)
The history of physical anthropology has most often been situated and studied in the context of specific colonial powers and nation states. At the same time, the study of human variation had as its scope to study human evolution on a global scale. It thus necessarily included transnational border crossings and scholarly exchanges of specimen collections that allowed researchers to study migration and differentiation patterns on a large scale. In addition, scientists working in a national context often sought international approval (...) to validate their findings and gain national standing. The set of essays collected in this special issue takes this tension between national, transnational, and global impulses in the... (shrink)
Interview with Sydney Brenner.Soraya de Chadarevian - 2009 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40 (1):65-71.details
The following text is an edited version of a recent interview with Sydney Brenner who has been at the forefront of many developments in molecular biology since the 1950s. It provides a participant’s view on current issues in the history and epistemology of molecular biology. The main issue raised by Brenner regards the relation of molecular biology to the new field of systems biology. Brenner defends the original programme of molecular biology—the molecular explanation of living processes—that in his view has (...) yet to be completed. The programme of systems biology in contrast he views as either trivial or as not achievable since it purports to deal with inverse problems that are impossible to solve in complex living systems. Other issues covered in the conversation concern the impact of the human genome sequencing project, the commercial turn in molecular biology and the contested disciplinary status of the science. (shrink)
The Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge played a key role in the postwar history of molecular biology. The paper, focussing on the early history of the institution, aims to show that the creation of the laboratory and the making of molecular biology were part of a new scientific culture set in place after World War II. In five interlinked parts it deals with the institutional creation of the MRC unit dedicated to the crystallographic analysis of biological (...) molecules; the attraction of postwar biophysics, the heading under which the work of the unit initially fell; the people who joined the laboratory and their appropriation of new technologies, in particular the electronic computer for protein crystal structure determination; the cultural appeal of postwar crystallography, as exemplified in the use of crystal structure diagrams for a wide series of consumer goods at the Festival of Britain in 1951 and the display of molecular models at the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958, a key site for the presentation of science and its role in the postwar world. (shrink)
With the interest in studying science as practice came an interest in the material artefacts and things that form part of scientific activities in the laboratory, the field, the classroom, or the political arena. This shift in interest in connection with new modes of knowledge production raises new questions regarding the “archive” of science: what should be preserved and where to make it possible to reconstruct scientific practices in the desired detail? While digital media may be able to bridge some (...) of the traditional divisions between the collection of scientific artefacts in museums and the written archival depositories, the move to performing science in silico produces new challenges in respect to establishing the material archives of current science. The paper will discuss these and related questions with special reference to the archives of the contemporary life sciences. (shrink)