1,720,971 research outputs found
Dolly at Roslin:A collective memory event
No full textBorn on 5 July 1996, Dolly the sheep was the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell, and became the most iconic member of her species. As part of the BBSRC-funded ‘Historicising Dolly’ project at the University of Edinburgh, we sought to conduct a group memory event that would gather different members of Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics who were either involved in the cloning or observed it as colleagues. Our purpose was twofold. First, we sought to place Dolly within the broader genetic engineering research programme at Roslin, alongside other cloned and transgenic sheep made there, and in the historical context of 1990s biotechnology and science funding. Second, through a collective memory event, we hoped to gather diverse perspectives and allow the participants to reflect on the established accounts of Dolly. The event took place on 19 April 2016, in the picturesque Elder Room, Old College, University of Edinburgh. The four-hour conversation was recorded, transcribed and revised by the participants. We then added light editing for style and clarity, trying to maintain the conversational nature of the event while making it easy to follow as written prose. The opinions of the speakers are their own
Dolly at Roslin:A collective memory event
No full textBorn on 5 July 1996, Dolly the sheep was the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell, and became the most iconic member of her species. As part of the BBSRC-funded ‘Historicising Dolly’ project at the University of Edinburgh, we sought to conduct a group memory event that would gather different members of Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics who were either involved in the cloning or observed it as colleagues. Our purpose was twofold. First, we sought to place Dolly within the broader genetic engineering research programme at Roslin, alongside other cloned and transgenic sheep made there, and in the historical context of 1990s biotechnology and science funding. Second, through a collective memory event, we hoped to gather diverse perspectives and allow the participants to reflect on the established accounts of Dolly. The event took place on 19 April 2016, in the picturesque Elder Room, Old College, University of Edinburgh. The four-hour conversation was recorded, transcribed and revised by the participants. We then added light editing for style and clarity, trying to maintain the conversational nature of the event while making it easy to follow as written prose. The opinions of the speakers are their own
Dolly at Roslin:A collective memory event
No full textBorn on 5 July 1996, Dolly the sheep was the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell, and became the most iconic member of her species. As part of the BBSRC-funded ‘Historicising Dolly’ project at the University of Edinburgh, we sought to conduct a group memory event that would gather different members of Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics who were either involved in the cloning or observed it as colleagues. Our purpose was twofold. First, we sought to place Dolly within the broader genetic engineering research programme at Roslin, alongside other cloned and transgenic sheep made there, and in the historical context of 1990s biotechnology and science funding. Second, through a collective memory event, we hoped to gather diverse perspectives and allow the participants to reflect on the established accounts of Dolly. The event took place on 19 April 2016, in the picturesque Elder Room, Old College, University of Edinburgh. The four-hour conversation was recorded, transcribed and revised by the participants. We then added light editing for style and clarity, trying to maintain the conversational nature of the event while making it easy to follow as written prose. The opinions of the speakers are their own
Tinkering with genes and embryos: The multiple invention of transgenic mice c. 1980
Get PDFGenetically modified or ‘transgenic’ mice are a routine experimental tool in biomedical research, commonly produced by injecting DNA into one-cell embryos. These animals were independently invented in 1980 by multiple university groups in the United States and Europe that combined expertise in mouse developmental biology and recombinant DNA techniques, or ‘genetic engineering’. In this article, I examine this multiple invention and argue that research strategies, experimental practices, and funding arrangements that led to transgenic mice are best described as tinkering. These creative and speculative endeavors, combined with partial knowledge of what was happening in competing laboratories, created a fruitful atmosphere for research which led to the multiple invention. The tinkering was, however, underpinned by infrastructures that were crucial to success, some long established, such as mouse supply or embryological tools, and some emerging, such as the informal exchange of isolated genes
Creature features: The lively narratives of bacteriophages in Soviet biology and medicine
No full textThe term ‘bacteriophage’ (devourer of bacteria) was coined by Felix D’Herelle in 1917 to describe both the phenomenon of spontaneous destruction of bacterial cultures and an agent responsible. Debates about the nature of bacteriophages raged in the 1920s and 30s, there were also extensive attempts to use the phenomenon to fight infections. While it eventually became a crucial tool for molecular biology, therapeutic uses of ‘phage’ declined sharply in the West after World War II, but persisted in the Soviet Union, particularly Georgia. Increasingly isolated form Western medical research, Soviet scientists developed their own metaphors of phage, its nature and action, and communication them to their peers, medical professionals and potential patients. In this article, I explore four kinds of narratives that shaped Soviet phage research: the mystique of bacteriophages the 1920s and 30s, animated accounts and military metaphors in the 1940s, Lysenkoist takes on bacteriophages as a phase in bacterial development, and the retrospective allocation of credit for the discovery of the bacteriophage during the Cold War. While viruses have been largely seen as barely living, phage narratives consistently featured heroic liveliness or ‘animacy’ that frames the growing consensus on its viral nature. Postwar narratives, shaped by the Lysenkoist turn and the campaigns against adulation of the West, had political power – while many microbiologists remained sceptical, they had to frame their critique within the correct language if they wanted to be published. The dramatic story of bacteriophage research in the Soviet Union is a reminder of the extent to which scientific narratives can be shaped by politics, but it also highlights the diversity of strategies and alternative interpretations possible within those constrains
Metaphors and tracers: Radioactivity in twentieth-century biology
No full textEssay reviewLife Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine,Angela Creager. University of Chicago Press, Chicago (2013). pp.512, Price: 55.00 cloth, ISBN:97802262382
An Alternative Cure:The Adoption and Survival of Bacteriophage Therapy in the USSR, 1922–1955
No full textFelix D’Herelle coined the term bacteriophage in 1917 to characterize a hypothetical viral agent responsible for the mysterious phenomenon of rapid bacterial death. While the viral nature of the “phage” was only widely accepted in the 1940s, attempts to use the phenomenon in treat-ing infections started early. After raising hopes in the interwar years, by 1945 phage therapy had been abandoned almost entirely in the West, until the recent revival of interest in response to the crisis of antibiotic resistance. The use of phage therapy, however, persisted within Soviet medi-cine, especially in Georgia. This article explains the adoption and survival of phage therapy in the USSR. By focusing on the Tbilisi Institute of Microbiology, Epidemiology and Bacterio-phage (now the Eliava Institute), I argue that bacteriophage research appealed to Soviet scientists because it offered an ecological model for understanding bacterial infection. In the 1930s, phage therapy grew firmly imbedded within the infrastructure of Soviet microbiological institutes. During the Second World War, bacteriophage preparations gained practical recognition from physicians and military authorities. At the dawn of the Cold War, the growing scientific isola-tion of Soviet science protected phage therapy from the contemporary Western critiques, and the ecological program of research into bacteriophages continued in Georgia
Dolly at Roslin:A Collective Memory Event
Get PDFBorn on 5 July 1996, Dolly the sheep was the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell, and became the most iconic member of her species. As part of the BBSRC-funded ‘Historicising Dolly’ project at the University of Edinburgh, we sought to conduct a group memory event that would gather different members of Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics who were either involved in the cloning or observed it as colleagues. Our purpose was twofold. First, we sought to place Dolly within the broader genetic engineering research programme at Roslin, alongside other cloned and transgenic sheep made there, and in the historical context of 1990s biotechnology and science funding. Second, through a collective memory event, we hoped to gather diverse perspectives and allow the participants to reflect on the established accounts of Dolly. The event took place on 19 April 2016, in the picturesque Elder Room, Old College, University of Edinburgh. The four-hour conversation was recorded, transcribed and revised by the participants. We then added light editing for style and clarity, trying to maintain the conversational nature of the event while making it easy to follow as written prose. The opinions of the speakers are their own
The Cold Futures of Mouse Genetics: Modes of Strain Cryopreservation since the 1970s
No full textCryopreservation, or the freezing of embryos or sperm, has become a routine part of many research projects involving laboratory mice. In this article, we combine historical and sociological methods to produce a cryopolitical analysis of this less explored aspect of animal research. We provide a longitudinal account of mouse embryo and semen storage and uses in the UK and show that cryopreservation enabled researchers to overcome particular challenges—fears of strain loss, societal disapproval, and genetic drift—in ways which enabled the continued existence of strains and contributed to the scaling up of mouse research since World War II. We use the theoretical lens of cryopolitics to explore three different, yet overlapping, cryopolitical strategies that we identify. All share the ability to ensure the continued maintenance of genetically-defined strains without the need for continually breeding colonies of mice. We argue that, in contrast to more common imaginaries of species conservation, the cryopolitical rationale can best be understood as purposefully not letting the strain die without requiring animals to live. The ability to freeze mice, then, had the potential to unsettle who the objects of care are in mouse research, from individual animals to the concept of the strain itself
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