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Selling pure science in wartime: The biochemical genetics of G. W. Beadle

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References

  1. For accounts of Beadle and biochemical genetics, see J. S. Fruton, Molecules and Life (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1972), chap. 3; R. C. Olby, The Path to the Double Helix (London: Macmillan, 1978), chap. 2; H. F. Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), chap. 7; F. H. Portugal and J. S. Cohen, A Century of DNA (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977), chap. 8; N. H. Horowitz, “Genetics and the Synthesis of Proteins,” “Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 325 (1979), 253–266; and L. E. Kay, “Cooperative Individualism and the Growth of Molecular Biology at the California Institute of Technology, 1928–1953,” Ph.D. diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1986, chaps. 3 and 6.

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  2. On the intellectual gulf between genetics and biochemistry see, for example, H. Fraenkel-Conrat, “Protein Chemists Encounter Viruses,” Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., 325 (1979), 309–318. On the agricultural context of biology in general and genetics in particular see C. E. Rosenberg, “Science, Technology, and Economic Growth: The Case of the Agricultural Experiment Station Scientist, 1875–1914” and “The Social Environment of Scientific Innovation: Factors in the Development of Genetics in the United States,” in No Other Gods (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 153–172, 196–209. On the medical context of biochemistry see R. E. Kohler, From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). We shall see later that the University of Wisconsin was an important exception: there biochemistry developed within a context that linked agriculture and medicine through nutrition and pharmacology.

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  3. For description of the prize-winning works, Nobel addresses, and biographical information, see “1958: G. W. Beadle, E. L. Tatum, and J. Lederberg,” Nobel Lectures in Molecular Biology, 1933–1975 (New York: Elsevier North-Holand, 1977), pp. 352–368.

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  6. G. W. Beadle, “Recollections,” Ann. Rev. Biochem., 43 (1974), 1–13.

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  7. On the early European studies in physiological genetics and the geneenzyme problem see Olby, Path to the Double-Helix, chap. 8; Fruton, Molecules and Life, pp. 225–254; J. Harwood, “History of Genetics in Germany,” Mendel Newsl., 24 (1984), 1–4. For Haldane's contributions see N. W. Pirie,” John Burdon Sanderson Haldane,” Biog. Mem. Roy. Soc., 12 (1966), 219–249.

  8. T. H. Morgan, “Genetics and the Physiology of Development,” Amer. Nat., 60 (1926), 489–515. For further discussion on the enzyme theory of the gene see A. W. Ravin, “The Gene as a Catalyst; The Gene as Organism,” Stud. Hist. Biol., 1 (1977), 1–45; and L. E. Kay, “W. M. Stanley's Crystallization of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus,” Isis, 77 (1986), 450–472.

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  9. B. Ephrussi and G. W. Beadle, “A Technique of Transplantation for Drosophila,” Amer. Nat., 50 (1936), 218–224; and B. Ephrussi, “Chemistry of ‘Eye Color Hormones’ of Drosophila,” Quart. Rev. Biol., 17 (1942), 327–338.

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  10. A. H. Sturtevant, “Physiological Aspects of Genetics,” Ann. Rev. Physiol., 3 (1941), 41–56.

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  11. F. B. Hanson Diary, September 4–5, 1936, Rockefeller Archive Center (hereafter RAC), RG 1.1, 205D, Box 7, File 88.

  12. For the University of Wisconsin connection to the pharmaceutical industries and Arthur Tatum's role see J. P. Swann, “The Emergence of Cooperative Research between American Universities and the Pharmaceutical Industry, 1920–1940,” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1985, chap. 5.

  13. Various aspects of the growth of biochemistry and nutrition research at the University of Wisconsin are discussed in Rosenberg, No Other Gods, pp. 153–172. Additional sources are given in D. Bearman, J. Edsall, and R. E. Kohler, Archival Sources in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1980), pp. 10–12. See also E. V. MoCollum, A History of Nutrition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957), passim.

  14. Beadle, “Recollections”, p. 8; and G. W. Beadle, Genetics and Modern Biology (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1963), p. 13.

  15. Nobel Lectures, p. 356; and G. W. Beadle, “Genetics and Metabolism in Neurospora”, Physiol. Rev., 25 (1945), 643–663.

  16. Beadle to Lindegren, July 25, 1941, California Institute of Technology Archives (hereafter CIT), Beadle Papers, Box 1, File 49.

  17. G. W. Beadle and E. L. Tatum, “Genetic Control of Biochemical Reactions in Neurospora”, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 27 (1941), 494–506.

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  18. Ephrussi to Beadle, August 22, 1941, CIT, Beadle Papers, Box 1, file 26.

  19. Beadle and Tatum, “Genetic Control”, p. 505.

  20. Irvin Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research for War (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948); J. P. Baxter, III, Scientists against Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1946); R. G. Cochrane, The National Academy of Sciences (Washington, D. C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1978), pp. 382–432; D. Greenberg, The Politics of Pure Science (New York: The New American Library, 1967); and chap. 1 in D. F. Noble, Forces of Production (New York: Knopf, 1984).

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  21. Swann, “Emergence of Cooperative Research,” chap. 4.

  22. Stewart, Organizing Scientific Research, chap. 7.

  23. Beadle to Eisenhart, December 21, 1941, CIT, Beadle Papers, Box 3, file 5.

  24. Beadle to Weaver, November 28, 1941, CIT, Beadle Papers, Box 2, file 54.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Hanson to Pauling, June 8, 1942, RAC, RG 2.2, 205D, Box 7, file 93. Foundation officer Hanson explained this patent issue to Pauling in respect to the immunology project at Caltech, since that project combined the interests of the Natural Sciences and Medical Sciences Divisions of the Rockefeller Foundation.

  27. Beadle to Weaver, November 28, 1941.

  28. Hanson's report, December 15–18, 1941, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 19, file 191.

  29. Beadle to Hanson, April 3, 1943, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 10, file 143. Also Beadle, “Recollections,” pp. 1–13.

  30. Wilbur to Fosdick, December 19, 1941, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 10, file 141.

  31. Beadle to Hanson, February 20, 1942, CIT, Biology Division Records, 1936–1946, Box 11, file 1.

  32. Beadle to Emerson, March 14, 1942, CIT, Beadle Papers, Box 2, file 53.

  33. Hanson to Pauling, January 21, 1942, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 7, file 85. In requesting a similar assessment of Pauling's project in immunochemistry, the officer explained the nature and purpose of the foundation's general survey.

  34. Beadle to Hanson, April 15, 1942, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 10, file 142.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Beadle to Hanson, February 20, 1942, CIT, Biology Division Records, 1936–1946, Box 11, file 1. For the rise of California's agribusiness see W. Bean and J. J. Rawls, California: An Interpretive History, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982).

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  37. Beadle to Hanson, July 3, 1942, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 10, file 142.

  38. Hanson to Beadle, July 7, 1942, ibid.

  39. Beadle to Hanson, July 13, 1942, ibid.

  40. Beadle to Hanson, September 17, 1942, and Hanson's report, October 14, 1942, ibid.

  41. Beadle to Hanson, November 6, 1942, p. 1, ibid.

  42. Ibid., p. 2.

  43. Beadle's report, “Genic Control of Biochemical Reactions in Neurospora,” December 2, 1944, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 10, file 144.

  44. Beadle to Hanson, November 24, 1942, ibid., file 142.

  45. Beadle to Hanson, January 27, 1943, ibid., file 143.

  46. Beadle's report, “Genic Control of Biochemical Reactions in Neurospora,” pp. 10–11.

  47. Ibid. He also credited Sewall Wright with proposing some of the evolutionary interpretations.

  48. Beadle to Hanson, January 17, 1944, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 10, file 144.

  49. G. W. Beadle, “Genetic Control of Biochemical Reactions,” Harvey Lect., 40 (1945), 193.

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  50. Hanson's report, February 15, 1945, RAC, RG 1.1, 205D, Box 10, file 145.

  51. Beadle, “Recollection,” p. 11.

  52. Horowitz, “Genetics and the Synthesis of Proteins,” p. 257.

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    Lily E. Kay

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Kay, L.E. Selling pure science in wartime: The biochemical genetics of G. W. Beadle. J Hist Biol 22, 73–101 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00209604

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