Radiobiology in the Atomic Age: Changing Research Practices and Policies in Comparative Perspective

Creager, Angela N. H.; Santesmases, Marı́a Jesús

doi:10.1007/s10739-006-9107-3

Cited by 26 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…316-324. 14 Creager, 2014;Creager and Santesmases, 2006;De Chadarevian, 2006;Gaudillie`re, 2006;Rader, 2006;Santesmases, 2006;Rasmussen, 1997;Bocking, 1995;Lindee, 1994;Beatty, 1991. Onderzoek) in Rijswijk (Holland), headed by Jacob A. Cohen, for researches on irradiated monkeys and specific germ pathogen free mice.…”

Section: Raymond K Appleyard and Euratom Second Five-year Planmentioning

confidence: 99%

“A Cold Spring Harbor in Europe.” EURATOM, UNESCO and the Foundation of EMBO

Cassata¹

2015

J Hist Biol

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This article explores the problem of the foundation of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), by reconstructing a broader institutional framework, which includes other international actors--EURATOM, UNESCO and the International Laboratory of Genetics and Biophysics (ILGB) in Naples--and a relevant, but still neglected figure, the Italian geneticist Adriano Buzzati-Traverso (1913-1983). The article considers the tension between centralized and federal models of organization in the field of life sciences not just as an EMBO internal controversy, but rather as a structural issue of European scientific cooperation in fundamental biology in the early 1960s. Along with EMBO, the article analyzes in particular the EURATOM Biology Division Program and the constitution of UNESCO International Cell Research Organization (ICRO). Adriano Buzzati-Traverso, as founder of ILGB and scientific consultant of EURATOM and UNESCO, played a crucial role in the complex negotiation which ultimately led to the foundation of EMBO. A synchronic treatment of ILGB, EURATOM, UNESCO-ICRO and EMBO opens a window on the early 1960s institutional configuration of molecular biology in Europe, showing how it basically incorporated the "Cold Spring Harbor" decentralized model rather than reproducing the "CERN" centralized model.

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Section: Raymond K Appleyard and Euratom Second Five-year Planmentioning

confidence: 99%

“A Cold Spring Harbor in Europe.” EURATOM, UNESCO and the Foundation of EMBO

Cassata¹

2015

J Hist Biol

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“…3–4). Radioactive isotopes had been widely introduced in biomedicine after WWII (Creager & Santesmases, 2006). …”

Section: Rheumatism and The Origins Of Connective Tissue Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic and molecular matrices: A study of the transformations of connective tissue research at the University of Manchester (1947–1996)

García-Sancho

2011

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in

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This paper explores the different identities adopted by connective tissue research at the University of Manchester during the second half of the 20th century. By looking at the long-term redefinition of a research programme, it sheds new light on the interactions between different and conflicting levels in the study of biomedicine, such as the local and the global, or the medical and the biological. It also addresses the gap in the literature between the first biomedical complexes after World War II and the emergence of biotechnology. Connective tissue research in Manchester emerged as a field focused on new treatments for rheumatic diseases. During the 1950s and 60s, it absorbed a number of laboratory techniques from biology, namely cell culture and electron microscopy. The transformations in scientific policy during the late 70s and the migration of Manchester researchers to the US led them to adopt recombinant DNA methods, which were borrowed from human genetics. This resulted in the emergence of cell matrix biology, a new field which had one of its reference centres in Manchester. The Manchester story shows the potential of detailed and chronologically wide local studies of patterns of work to understand the mechanisms by which new biomedical tools and institutions interact with long-standing problems and existing affiliations.

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“…As Kraft and Strasser have shown, national atomic energy policy and funding programs affected both the availability of radioisotopes and the emergence of molecular biology in Europe (Kraft, 2006; Strasser, 2006). Through producing and distributing radioisotopes to scientists, national atomic energy agencies enabled and encouraged radiolabeling studies and radiation genetics investigations, experimental approaches rapidly taken up by phage researchers but also by laboratory and field biologists working in many other subfields (Creager & Santesmases, 2006). The phage experiments conducted with radiophosphorus suggest that the way in which first generation molecular biologists conceptualized heredity was closely connected to the experimental questions permitted by these radiolabeling techniques—as well as to concerns about radiation hazards (de Chadarevian, 2006; Rheinberger, n.d. a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This founding myth of molecular biology continues to permeate the historiography. The touchstone is Cairns, Stent & Watson (1966); for analysis of the role of physicists, see Keller (1990, 1992), Rasmussen (1997b), de Chadarevian (2002), and Creager & Santesmases (2006). Rasmussen provides an especially astute summary of the historiographical elements.…”

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confidence: 99%

Phosphorus-32 in the Phage Group: radioisotopes as historical tracers of molecular biology

Creager

2009

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in

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The recent historiography of molecular biology features key technologies, instruments and materials, which offer a different view of the field and its turning points than preceding intellectual and institutional histories. Radioisotopes, in this vein, became essential tools in postwar life science research, including molecular biology, and are here analyzed through their use in experiments on bacteriophage. Isotopes were especially well suited for studying the dynamics of chemical transformation over time, through metabolic pathways or life cycles. Scientists labeled phage with phosphorus-32 in order to trace the transfer of genetic material between parent and progeny in virus reproduction. Initial studies of this type did not resolve the mechanism of generational transfer but unexpectedly gave rise to a new style of molecular radiobiology based on the inactivation of phage by the radioactive decay of incorporated phosphorus-32. These ‘suicide experiments’, a preoccupation of phage researchers in the mid-1950s, reveal how molecular biologists interacted with the traditions and practices of radiation geneticists as well as those of biochemists as they were seeking to demarcate a new field. The routine use of radiolabels to visualize nucleic acids emerged as an enduring feature of molecular biological experimentation.

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Radiobiology in the Atomic Age: Changing Research Practices and Policies in Comparative Perspective

Abstract: This essay introduces a special collection of papers by

Cited by 26 publications

References 20 publications

“A Cold Spring Harbor in Europe.” EURATOM, UNESCO and the Foundation of EMBO

“A Cold Spring Harbor in Europe.” EURATOM, UNESCO and the Foundation of EMBO

Academic and molecular matrices: A study of the transformations of connective tissue research at the University of Manchester (1947–1996)

Phosphorus-32 in the Phage Group: radioisotopes as historical tracers of molecular biology

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