A History of Molecular Biology

© 1999 Nature America Inc. • http://medicine.nature.com BOOK REVIEW The later sections of the book broaden tive accounts offered range just as widely much a construction by the brain; and the scope even further, discussing Capgras in their level of explanation, encompass- second, that our sense of a unitary self is syndrome (the delusion that close rela- ing both neurotransmitter systems and illusory, as we are each made up of innu- tives have been replaced by imposters), re- evolutionary psychology. If anything, the merable distinct neural systems. ligious experience in temporal lobe book suffers from being too broad in the I thoroughly enjoyed reading this epilepsy, idiot savants, multiple personal- material covered. The result is insufficient book. It provides nourishing food for ity disorder, the biological basis of laugh- focus on common themes, although two thought throughout, even though some ter, ‘mind-over-body’ in medicine, and ideas do recur as leitmotifs: first, that our parts are best taken with hefty grains of the nature of consciousness. The specula- everyday experience of the world is very salt. A History of Molecular Morange has divided his monograph time. The chapter on genetic engineering into three parts, devoted to the birth, de- is a model of clarity, both in its analysis of Biology velopment and expansion of what has be- public fears and in its quiet emphasis on come the pivotal contemporary science. the fact that the techniques of genetic en- The discipline of molecular gineering are fundamental to all aspects By Michel Morange biology had a gestation and of contemporary molecu- Harvard University Press. $39.95, 384 pp. birth of about three lar biology research. ISBN: 0-674-39855-6 decades, during which the Further chapters on gene nature of viruses and splicing, oncogenes and REVIEWED BY WILLIAM BYNUM phages was elucidated, the DNA amplification round Professor of the History of Medicine one gene–one enzyme hy- out this exemplary book. Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine pothesis was established, Two themes permeate A 183 Euston Road the nuances of bacterial re- History of Molecular Biology. London, NW1 2BE production were studied The first is the changing and the chemical nature of historical relationship of The history of recent science has often the gene was greatly de- molecular biology to re- proved a battlefield. Historians some- bated. The chief players in lated disciplines such as times accuse scientists who turn their this act of the drama— genetics, developmental http://medicine.nature.com • hands to reporting history as being naive which extended until just biology, biochemistry, im- and uncritical, writing ‘tunnel-vision’ ac- after World War II—included Linus munology, physics and cell biology. As a counts of their topics. In turn, scientists Pauling, Max Delbrück, Joshua Lederberg biochemist, Morange is especially sensi- often look with suspicion on the anthro- and Salvador Luria. Morange also pro- tive to chemical contributions to his sub- pological and sociological perspectives vides lucid assessments of the contents ject, but equally aware of the fact that all that historians bring to bear on labora- and impact of Erwin Schrödinger’s mod- life science cannot be reduced to molecu- tory life. They complain that historians estly entitled little volume, What is Life? lar biology. Indeed, as he points out, cell put in the politics and bickering but leave and Niels Bohr’s famous lecture, Light and biology has enjoyed an especially fruitful out the point of it all—the science. Life. Morange also re-examines the influ- period during the past two decades. He 1999 Nature America Inc. I have spent a good deal of my profes- ence of the Rockefeller Foundation on the predicts that the integration of molecular © sional life trying to encourage dialogue discipline that was first called ‘molecular and evolutionary biology will be a source between the two communities, and I biology’ in 1938 by Warren Weaver, head of creative interdisciplinary interaction in would like to invite Michel Morange to of the Foundation’s Natural Science the coming years. some future meeting, for here is a profes- Division from 1931. A second theme is the fundamental sor of biochemistry who has read and The 1953 papers in Nature of James role of technique in the creation of new assimilated the relevant historical litera- Watson and Francis Crick on the helical knowledge. Although he gives less promi- ture—even though he does not agree structure of DNA heralded the develop- nence than I would have expected to X- with all of it—and knows science from mental phase of molecular biology. With ray diffraction analysis of molecular the inside. it came a physical model of gene replica- structure (Dorothy Hodgkin, for instance, He succeeds brilliantly in producing a tion and Crick’s famous enunciation of gets no mention), he is sensitive to the sensitive, sophisticated account of his the ‘central dogma’. Knowledge of the importance, inter alia, of the electron mi- subject that is accessible to the general role of messenger RNA and of protein croscope, the ultracentrifuge, chromatog- reader. Along the way, one learns a lot synthesis also dates from this period; I raphy, radioisotopes, and spectroscopy in about history and a lot about molecular still remember the announcement to our the creation of classic molecular biology. biology. Morange’s volume wonderfully biochemistry class that Jacques Monod, He cites an unnamed disgruntled Nobel demonstrates that historical analysis François Jacob and André Lwoff had just Laureate who remarked that Kary Mullis’s can provide an effective means of been awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize for work on DNA amplification was a mere understanding present-day concerns. Medicine or Physiology. technical trick, unworthy of the ultimate Originally published in French in 1994, This and other Nobel Prizes catalyzed scientific Prize, awarded in 1993. As this fluent translation (with more the expansion of molecular biology Morange reminds us, however, science than three-quarters of its references to throughout Europe and North America, and technology are now so intertwined English language publications) is to be and it is to Morange’s credit that he that it is not always possible to say where welcomed. brings his story right up to the present one ends and the other begins. 140 NATURE MEDICINE • VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 2 • FEBRUARY 1999.

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