Scholars Award: Heredity under the Microscope: A History of Human Chromosomes

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

General Audience Summary This project aims to understand what fueled research on human chromosomes, the cellular structures carrying genetic information, during the middle decades of the twentieth century, and to reconsider its supposed demise from the 1980s. In the postwar era, the microscope-based study of human chromosomes was a high-profile subject that promised to provide answers to urgent scientific, medical and political questions and attracted much funding and attention. Yet, the study of human chromosomes hardly plays a role in historical accounts of postwar genetics; molecular biology has taken much of the limelight. By following human chromosomes and the techniques and images that came packaged with them, it aims to reconstruct where human heredity mattered and genetic knowledge was embraced, debated, and rejected. The primary product of the research will be a book, accessible to wide readership in the history of science and technology, science studies and the life sciences. Historians will find a fresh perspective on an important chapter of twentieth century science. Biologists working in the field will gain a deeper understanding of the different strands of research that inform current genomic practices. The study will also be accessible to a more general readership, including science educators and policy makers, interested in looking beyond the story of the double helix to understand how heredity became an overriding concern in the late 20th and early 21st century. Technical Summary The focus on human chromosomes provides a fresh vantage point from which to investigate the postwar history of human, medical and molecular genetics. The study will provide a novel understanding of several key issues. The focus on chromosomes allows the investigation to move beyond the limits of a disciplinary history and to trace the many contexts in which chromosome techniques were taken up and developed including radio-biological research, cancer research, toxicology, gender testing, criminology, world-wide population studies and in the policy arena. The study aims to recover these multiple uses of the new technology and to reconstruct the expectations placed on the new genetic technology. The study will also provide an integrated account of the history of postwar genetics by considering the place of microscopical practices next to molecular approaches in the postwar quest to study and harness heredity. While molecular biologists have long predicted the demise of cytogenetics, these practices have not only survived and thrived, especially in the field of comparative evolutionary genomics and in the clinical and drug discovery context. In light of these various facets, the research will have an impact on archival collecting practices. It will be shown that to document the history of postwar genetics for future historians it is necessary to have an inclusive view of the kind of objects and documents that make up this history.