Book Description
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.
Introduction
Molecular Biology (A New Biology?),
Rockefeller Foundation: Knowledge and Cultural Hegemony,
Caltech: Engineering and Consensus, Molecular Vision of Life
1. "Social Control": Rockefeller Foundation's Agenda in the Human Sciences, 1913-1933
Salvation through Experts,
Taming the Savage,
Toward a "New Science of Man"
2. Technological Frontier: Southern California and the Emergence of Life Science at Caltech
Machine in the Pacific Garden, 1900-1930,
The Cooperative Ideal: Toward a Life Science at Caltech
3. Visions and Realities: The Biology Division in the Morgan Era
Morgan and the New Biology: A Problem of Service Role,
Contradictory Elements,
Interlude I. Protein Paradigm,
Heredity and the Protein View of Life,
Chemistry of Proteins during the 1930s: Theories and Technologies
4. From Flies to Molecules: Physiological Genetics During Morgan Era
Jack Schultz: A Bridge to the Phenotype,
Beadle, Ephrussi, and the Physiology of Gene Action,
The Riddle of Life: Max Delbriick and Phage Genetics,
Nascent Trends: Toward Giant Protein Molecules,
5. Convergence of Goals: From Physical Chemistry to Bio-Organic
Chemistry, 1930-1940
Gates Chemical Laboratory, 1930,
Vital Processes: Pauling and Weaver,
Crellin Laboratory: Nascent Trends,
6. Spoils of War: Immunochemistry and Serological Genetics, 1940-1945
Terra Incognita: Shift to Immunology,
Problem of Antibody Synthesis,
Science at War,
Terra Firma: 1944-1945
7. Microorganisms and Macromanagement: Beadle's Return to Caltech
New Biological System,
Selling Pure Science in Wartime,
Beadle's Return to Caltech,
Interlude II. At a Crossroads: Shaping of Postwar Science,
Rockefeller Foundation and the New World Order,
Designing "Big Science": Caltech's "Magnificent Plan"
8. Molecular Empire (1946-1953)
Life in a Black Box: The Rise of Delbriick's Phage School,
Key Team Member: Delbriick and the Phage Cult,
Protein Victory, Pure and Applied,
Epilogue
Paradigm Lost? From Nucleoproteins to DNA,
Conclusion
Key to Archival Sources,
Index