Vollmer, Amy Cheng

Vollmer, S. J.

English

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Swarthmore College Works Biology Faculty Works Biology Summer 2005 Review Of "The Microbial Models Of Molecular Biology: From Genes To Genomes" By R. H. Davis Amy Cheng Vollmer Swarthmore College, avollme1@swarthmore.edu S. J. Vollmer This work is brought to you for free and open access by . It has been accepted for inclusion in Biology Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-biology  Part of the Biology Commons, and the Microbiology Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits you  Recommended Citation Amy Cheng Vollmer and S. J. Vollmer. (2005). "Review Of "The Microbial Models Of Molecular Biology: From Genes To Genomes" By R. H. Davis". Bulletin Of The History Of Medicine. Volume 79, Issue 2. 358-360. DOI: 10.1353/bhm.2005.0095 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-biology/10 The Microbial Models of Molecular Biology: From Genes to Genomes(review)Amy Cheng Vollmer, Steven J. VollmerBulletin of the History of Medicine, Volume 79, Number 2, Summer2005, pp. 358-360 (Article)Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/bhm.2005.0095For additional information about this article                                                       Access provided by Swarthmore College (5 Mar 2014 15:00 GMT)http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/bhm/summary/v079/79.2vollmer.html358 book reviews Bull. Hist. Med., 2005, 791930s. Little’s personality and social standing helped to “sell” genetic argumentsfor cancer causation, and the importance of inbred mice in determining thesecauses, as much as did his actual research results.The Depression drastically reduced most of these sources of funds and forcedLittle to commercialize the production of inbred mice at the Jackson Lab—to sellmice that had previously been given away. JAX mice, as they were known, becamethe gold standard for inbred mice, and were central to cancer research as well asother areas of biomedical research. Rader portrays very well the tension betweenthe commercial and the research sides of the laboratory, but she misses thechance to explore more fully the issue of the commodification of living subjectsof research. The mice at times disappear among the institutional detail.Rader begins her book with the 1947 “Great Bar Harbor Fire” that destroyedthe Jackson Lab’s breeding facility, seeing this as a turning point in the laboratory’shistory as well as in American consciousness about scientific research and re-search animals. However, her account of the 1950s largely shifts the focus fromthe Jackson Lab to genetics research on radiation risk, particularly that at OakRidge Laboratory in Tennessee. She closes her account with a look at currentissues, noting briefly the “cultural legacy” of experimental mice. Although thisreader would have liked more on this cultural significance, this is a minorcriticism of a very valuable book on an important topic. While the book itself isnicely designed and well-illustrated, it has a truly astounding number of typo-graphical errors (about one per page), which is not the standard I would expectfrom Princeton University Press.Anita GuerriniUniversity of California, Santa BarbaraRowland H. Davis. The Microbial Models of Molecular Biology: From Genes to Genomes.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. xiv + 337 pp. Ill. $30.00 (0-19-515436-3).Rowland H. Davis, a distinguished researcher in molecular genetics and metabo-lism through his work with the fungus Neurospora crassa, has contributed athoughtful chronology of the emergence of molecular biology, from the uniqueperspective of the choices of organisms employed for critical, landmark studies.He posits that microbial models have “positioned us for our twenty-first-century,postgenomic exploration of biological variation and complexity” (p. viii). Hisbook is written for biologists who strive to learn about systems at all levels ofcomplexity. The text is supported with extensive footnotes and references, as wellas comprehensive name (of investigators) and subject indices. It would be valu-able reading for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, andpostdoctoral fellows, to acquaint them with how and why biologists select specificorganisms in pursuing fundamental questions. Moreover, there are three short book reviews Bull. Hist. Med., 2005, 79 359appendices that serve as primers on (1) Life Cycles and Principles of Genetics,(2) Macromolecules and the Central Dogma, and (3) Genetic Engineering. Thisbrief treatment of fundamental principles serves as a concise review and, forphysical scientists, mathematicians, and computer scientists involved in interdis-ciplinary research problems, a good introduction.Davis aims to describe the revolution that ensued after microbes became thefocus of genetics studies. He articulates three goals in writing the book: (1) toshow how the few microbial model systems were chosen for study; (2) to describehow each model, as influenced by prevailing attitudes and technology, waseclipsed by the succeeding model; and (3) to show that the models servedbiology well in a transitional period, the products of which now have us poisedagain to investigate the complexity of living organisms in their environments.Davis’s narrative, punctuated with descriptions of people, historical times, andmethods of study, reads more like a fireside reminiscence than classroom lecturenotes—yet the material is substantive, carefully annotated, and technically au-thoritative. He begins by distinguishing between model systems: “organismswidely used for particular research projects” (p. 6), and model organisms: “or-ganisms whose biology is understood at many different levels—organisms thatcan be used as a representative or basis of comparison for a large taxon orkingdom of life” (p. 13). Davis briefly establishes the context of the field ofgenetics at the turn of the twentieth century, work that relied on the use of higherorganisms with grossly macroscopic, visible traits. Then, in chronological orderof ascendance to the status of model organism, he devotes individual chapters tothe exploitation of Neurospora, Aspergillus, yeast, E. coli, and the T and temperatebacteriophages to examine the nature and action of genes.These sections are followed by chapters describing the establishment of thedouble helix model of DNA, the reprise of the prominence of prokaryotes asmodels, cytoplasmic inheritance, and organellar genetics. Two more chapterscontrast the establishment of yeast as a “supermodel” and the reemergence offilamentous fungi as a model group. The closing chapters of the book include adiscussion of the critical role played by biochemistry in enabling the discoveriesmade with model organisms; a call for the integration of studies in physiologyand metabolism; and a recapitulation of the impact of genomics on biologicalresearch. Lastly, Davis reviews the legacy provided by these model organisms asbiological science looks to embrace, at a detailed level, the complex subjects nowmade accessible through the integrated application of molecular tools.Davis answers questions about how choices of study systems are made, startingwith the state of research on genetics and inheritance—shedding light on thepersonalities, biases, training, and eccentricities of scientists, and even the influ-ence of geographic isolation and the amassing of a group of intense investigators.He eloquently reminds us that science is a process that builds on what has comebefore and is dependent on cross-talk as well as healthy competition. He pointsout that many problems of biology that were crucial in motivating the reduction-ists to seek simple, distinctive systems of study are now able to be addressed withnew tools, databases, and systems approaches. The goals that Davis articulated in360 book reviews Bull. Hist. Med., 2005, 79his introduction are achieved in his timely and authoritative book. He providesan insight as to where we have been and how we got there, which should help ustake the next exciting steps that look beyond model organisms to organisms thathave societal value in medicine, agriculture, ecology, and commerce.Amy Cheng VollmerSwarthmore CollegeandSteven J. VollmerDuPont CompanyThomas Gerst. Ärztliche Standesorganisation und Standespolitik in Deutschland, 1945–1955. Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte, no. 21. Yearbook of the Institut fürGeschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner,2004. 270 pp. €38.00 (paperbound, 3-515-08056-2).The history of the modern German medical profession has gone from a virtualwasteland to a respectable edifice in the last fifteen years or so. The field hasmoved from dominance by self-interested members of the profession to analysisby scholarly, critical, social, and medical historians, producing a string of works inGerman as well as English, from specialized monographs to comparative studiesof learned professions.1 Inevitably, the role of doctors in the Third Reich hasdrawn considerable attention, and some is finally being paid to what is now a verylong “postwar” period, particularly since about 1955. Largely neglected by histo-rians, the immediate postwar period of occupation, dismantling of the Naziestablishment, (re)construction of a medical profession on decentralized Fed-eral lines (West Germany) or Stalinist principles (East Germany), and initialrecovery has lacked sufficient well-researched study up to now.This gap is meant to be filled by Gerst’s book, originally a Ph.D. dissertation atthe University of Stuttgart. As this reviewer can attest, research on this period inthe history of the German medical profession was long rendered problematicalto impossible by the condition and limited accessibility of relevant primarysource material, which Dr. Gerst has finally been able to use—particularly thefiles of the directors of the federal and state medical chambers (Ärztekammer)1. A representative sample might include Claudia Huerkamp, Der Aufstieg der Ärzte im 19.Jahrhundert (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1985); Michael Kater, Doctors under Hitler(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); Rebecca Schwoch, ÄrztlicheStandespolitik im Nationalsozialismus (Husum: Matthiesen, 2001); Konrad Jarausch, The Un-free Professions: German Lawyers, Teachers, and Engineers, 1900–1950 (Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1990); and Charles E. McClelland, The German Experience of Professionalization(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Review Of  The Microbial Models Of Molecular Biology: From Genes To Genomes  By R. H. Davis

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Review Of The Microbial Models Of Molecular Biology: From Genes To Genomes By R. H. Davis

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