The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rise of the New BiologyThis 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. |
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Índice
Introduction | 3 |
Rockefeller Foundations Agenda in the Human Sciences 19131933 | 22 |
Southern California and the Emergence of Life Science at Caltech | 58 |
The Biology Division in the Morgan Era | 77 |
Interlude I Protein Paradigm | 104 |
Physiological Genetics During Morgan Era | 121 |
From Physical Chemistry to BioOrganic Chemistry 19301940 | 143 |
Immunochemistry and Serological Genetics 19401945 | 164 |
Beadles Return to Caltech | 194 |
Shaping of Postwar Science | 217 |
8 Molecular Empire 19461953 | 243 |
Epilogue Paradigm Lost? From Nucleoproteins to DNA | 269 |
Conclusion | 280 |
Key to Archival Sources | 283 |
285 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todo
The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the ... Lily E. Kay Vista previa restringida - 1992 |
The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the ... Lily E. Kay Vista previa restringida - 1992 |
The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the ... Lily E. Kay No hay ninguna vista previa disponible - 1993 |
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academic activities American amino acid antibodies applied approach bacteriophage Beadle Beadle's behavior biochemical biochemistry biology division biology program California Caltech cell chemical chemistry Chicago collaboration concept contributions cooperation Corporation cultural decades Delbrück direct division Drosophila early effective engineering enzymes established eugenics experiments field Foundation's fundamental funds gene genetics grant growth History human important industry influence Institute intellectual interest John knowledge Laboratory later mechanisms medicine methods Millikan molecular biology molecules Morgan mutations nature Neurospora Note Noyes nucleic acids officers Origins Pauling Pauling's phage physical physiology political problems processes production progress projects promise proposed protein reactions relation Rockefeller Foundation role scientific scientists social control Society specific structure studies Sturtevant Technology theory trustees turn United University University Press viruses vision Weaver York