The Position of Microbiology between Organismal Biology and the Applied Sciences: The American Type Culture Collection: 1911-1984.

Abstract

Microbiology occupies an uncertain position within the life sciences. Microbiology is never fully assimilated into organismal biology, and maintains a deep connection to experimental and applied sciences. Competing and conflicting methods and theories in evolutionary biology are developed by bounded communities of scientists formed around their organism of study, driving and maintaining the separation between microbiology and organismal biology. The American Type Culture Collections (ATCC), a national museum of microbial cultures, acts as both a museum maintaining collections in service to the descriptive organismal biologies, and as a distribution center providing materials for external communities of researchers in the experimental and applied sciences. The ATCC is historically situated at the end of the "golden age of the American museum," characterized by the modern museum model in which function of museums extends beyond the collections to an external community, and the rise of experimental biology in the twentieth century. The ATCC becomes a new kind of museum housing live, replicable materials that can be distributed. The mission of the ATCC includes maintaining a dual function, seeking funding and support from external institutions affiliated with both sides of its mission, resulting in a tension when these two purposes are not compatible. The tension of this dual purpose forms the institutional identity of the ATCC, which acts as a boundary object between organismal biology and the experimental and applied sciences. Here the ATCC is shown to illustrate the uncertain position of microbiology within the life sciences.M.S., Science, Technology and Society -- Drexel University, 201