This doctoral dissertation improvement grant supports an investigation in the history of cell degeneration research. The dissertation focuses on four historical episodes from the 1930s to 1990s. The first three episodes are largely written in draft form. This grant will support research on the fourth historical episode documenting H. Robert Horvitz's study of cell death in the nematode C. elegans from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Horvitz, a molecular biologist, shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with two others. This current proposal requests funding mostly for archival visits and interviews to characterize the fourth historical episode through the early 1990s when Horvitz represented cell death as a specific cellular state of differentiation caused by a network of gene expressions. This development opened the door for future genomic approaches to cell death, aging as well as cancer research through studying the model organism C. elegans.
Intellectual Merits
The specific study supported by this grant and the encompassing dissertation research will serve to provide an analytical account of the emergence of diverse meanings of cell degeneration, such as being a protector of health, a sculptor for development, and a limitation of lifespan, in the contexts of these research programs and broader biomedical concerns. The study will contribute to deeper understandings of the complex history of biomedical research including insights about scientific practice and connections with broader historical backdrops and consequences. The study will also contribute to discussions in history and philosophy of science and science studies on the roles of new biological material, research styles, and priorities in the modern development of biology, especially with the intricate interplay between changing experimental systems and concepts of cell degeneration these systems embodied.
Broader Impacts
History of science projects that contextualize and problematize current knowledge and research programs on a particular topic, in this case cell degeneration, are of substantial interest to scientists in the field (cell biology) and related fields (such as molecular biology, physiology, cancer research, and research on aging). In addition, the results of this project are to be communicated to the public through the online encyclopedia of embryology, the Embryo Project, through an online virtual exhibition about history of biology of aging at the Marine Biological Laboratory Repository, and through a prize-winning podcast by Chemical Heritage Foundation, Distillations.
." She travelled to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives, London and Cambridge Archives, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, and the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. There she carried out interview and studied a large number of documents related to the hsitory of cell degeneration and developmental biology. The outcomes include discovery of these materials, digitization of some of the materials that will be available through http://history.archives.mbl.edu for openly accessible use. Plus the dissertation itself, which will be revised into a book manuscript, as well as articles to be published in scholarly journals, and presentations at national meetings and the MBL. intellectual Merit focuses on the discovery of the history of understanding of cell degeneration as it relates to the history of development and aging. Jiang discovered materials in archives that had not been studied and pulled them together in new ways. Broader impacts relate to the importance of the work for aging research and understanding of telmores, cell degeneration, and related issues. The project was completed, as planned with additional discoveries beyond those expected, and completed ahead of schedule.
