Cancer, Conflict, and the Development of Nuclear Transplantation Techniques

Abstract

The technique of nuclear transplantation - popularly known as cloning - has been integrated into several different histories of twentieth century biology. Historians and science scholars have situated nuclear transplantation within narratives of scientific practice, biotechnology, bioethics, biomedicine, and changing views of life. However, nuclear transplantation has never been the focus of analysis. In this article, I examine the development of nuclear transplantation techniques, focusing on the people, motivations, and institutions associated with the first successful nuclear transfer in metazoans in 1952. The conflict between embryologists and geneticists over the mechanisms of differentiation motivated Robert Briggs to pursue nuclear transplantation experiments as a way to resolve the debate. Briggs worked at the Lankenau Hospital Research Institute, a research facility devoted to the study of cancer. The goal of understanding cancer would play a role in the development of the technique, and the story of nuclear transplantation sheds light on the role that biomedical contexts play in biological research in the second half of the twentieth century.

Inclusion and exclusion in the history of developmental biology

“…Weiss himself had worked during the war on nerve regeneration and even contributed to surgical innovations. A 'growth and development' perspective potentially illuminated numerous medical problems, but fed into and drew most generally on cancer research, which had been prominent in the foundation of the Growth Society itself (Crowe, 2014). It was widely accepted that 'organized development' 'may throw light upon' 'malignant growth' and vice versa (Berrill, 1971, p. 516).…”

The diversification of developmental biology

“…Rather, nearly a decade before, in 1952, Robert Briggs and Thomas King had published the first paper articulating the successful use of the procedure. Since that publication, Briggs and King had continued to carry out nuclear transplantation studies in their laboratory at Lankenau Hospital Research Institute in Philadelphia, training postdocs and visiting scientists throughout the period (Crowe, 2014). Several of the people associated with their laboratory during the 1950s appeared in the new nuclear transplantation (GEIS, 1961, p. 239).…”

Development and Heredity in the Interwar Period: Hans Spemann and Fritz Baltzer on Organizers and Merogones

“…Scientists who worked intensively on techniques of cell nuclear transplantation and cloning in the 1960s and 1970s—for example, McKinnell ( 1979 ) and Di Berardino ( 1997 )—referred to Spemann’s work as a kind of visionary origin of cloning research (see also Maienschein 2003 , pp. 115–118; Crowe 2014 , pp. 65–66).…”