This fascinating study examines the rise of American molecular biology to disciplinary dominance, focusing on the period between 1930 and the elucidation of DNA structure in the mid 1950s. Research undertaken during this period, with its focus on genetic structure and function, endowed scientists with then unprecedented power over life. By viewing the new biology as both a scientific and cultural enterprise, Lily E. Kay shows that the growth of molecular biology was a result of systematic efforts by key scientists and their sponsors to direct the development of biological research toward a shared vision of science and society. She analyzes the motivations and mechanisms empowering this vision by focusing on two key institutions: Caltech and its sponsor, the Rockefeller Foundation. Her study explores a number of vital, sometimes controversial topics, among them the role of private power centers in shaping scientific agenda, and the political dimensions of "pure" research. It also advances a sobering argument: the cognitive and social groundwork for genetic engineering and human genome projects was laid by the American architects of molecular biology during these early decades of the project. This book will be of interest to molecular biologists, historians, sociologists, and the general reader alike.
Author(s): Lily E. Kay
Series: Monographs on the History and Philosophy of Biol
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 1992
Language: English
Pages: 320
Contents......Page 10
Introduction......Page 14
Molecular Biology (A New Biology?)......Page 15
Rockefeller Foundation: Knowledge and Cultural Hegemony......Page 17
Caltech: Engineering and Consensus......Page 22
Molecular Vision of Life......Page 27
Salvation through Experts......Page 33
Taming the Savage......Page 40
Toward a "New Science of Man"......Page 50
Machine in the Pacific Garden, 1900–1930......Page 69
The Cooperative Ideal: Toward a Life Science at Caltech......Page 75
Morgan and the New Biology: A Problem of Service Role......Page 88
Contradictory Elements......Page 102
Heredity and the Protein View of Life......Page 115
Chemistry of Proteins during the 1930s: Theories and Technologies......Page 123
Jack Schultz: A Bridge to the Phenotype......Page 132
Beadle, Ephrussi, and the Physiology of Gene Action......Page 136
The Riddle of Life: Max Delbrück and Phage Genetics......Page 143
Nascent Trends: Toward Giant Protein Molecules......Page 147
Gates Chemical Laboratory, 1930......Page 154
Vital Processes: Pauling and Weaver......Page 158
Crellin Laboratory: Nascent Trends......Page 164
Terra Incognita: Shift to Immunology......Page 175
Problem of Antibody Synthesis......Page 182
Science at War......Page 188
Terra Firma: 1944–1945......Page 196
New Biological System......Page 205
Selling Pure Science in Wartime......Page 210
Beadle's Return to Caltech......Page 221
Rockefeller Foundation and the New World Order......Page 228
Designing "Big Science": Caltech's "Magnificent Plan"......Page 236
Life in a Black Box: The Rise of Delbrück's Phage School......Page 254
Key Team Member: Delbrück and the Phage Cult......Page 261
Protein Victory, Pure and Applied......Page 267
Epilogue Paradigm Lost? From Nucleoproteins to DNA......Page 280
Conclusion......Page 291
Key to Archival Sources......Page 294
A......Page 296
B......Page 297
C......Page 298
D......Page 301
F......Page 302
G......Page 303
H......Page 304
L......Page 305
M......Page 306
N......Page 307
P......Page 309
R......Page 311
S......Page 312
T......Page 313
W......Page 314
Z......Page 315
