Molecularizing Biology and Medicine by Chadarevian Soraya de. Kamminga Harmke

Author:Chadarevian, Soraya de.,Kamminga, Harmke. [SORAYA DE CHADAREVIAN AND HARMKE KAMMINGA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2011-09-07T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 5.1. Electron microscope picture of the chicken sarcoma agent.

So what made these two apparatus stick together and provide a basis for the characterization of macromolecules? What made the ultracentrifuge the tool of choice for determining the size of proteins and intracellular particles, while the electron microscope became the instrument for studying bacteria, viruses and infective entities? I would like to link this new “experimental game” to the war context in general, and to wartime research on the influenza virus in particular, since several key participants in the (postwar) cancer virus field were involved in the search for vaccines against influenza during World War II.

In the United States, wartime medical research was organized under two umbrellas. On the one hand, the Office for Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) headed by Vannevar Bush established a Committee on Medical Research (CMR) in 1941 for contracting research in universities and medical schools. On the other hand, in 1940, the Army and the Surgeon General set up a “Board for the Investigation and Control of Influenza and other Epidemic Diseases in the Army” which gathered together “epidemiologists, bacteriologists, chemists, and pathologists”. The rationale behind the Army decision was the memory of the influenza epidemic of 1918–1919. From a military medical viewpoint, key targets in the fight against influenza were the epidemiological investigation of local outbreaks of the disease, and the production of vaccines:

The present expansion of the Army has been accompanied by an increase in influenza and other acute respiratory diseases among troops… In fact, the possibility cannot be ignored that the Army may again be confronted by another pandemic of influenza of the virulent type which caused such a large proportion of the total death among our troops during the last war (Board, 1941 p. 3).

Following the development of methods for producing relatively large amounts of influenza virus in fertilized chiken eggs, attention focused on “inactivated” vaccines which would be made of influenza viruses killed by exposure to heat, ultraviolet light, formadehyde, or other chemicals. Although they were poorly represented on the military board, biochemists argued that the production of vaccines would only work if based on well-characterized strains of viruses. For instance, Stanley targetted the lack of “knowledge of the fundamental biophysical properties of the influenza virus” as a major impediment in the path toward prevention and control of influenza. Purification rather than inactivation should be the priority and the ultracentrifuge should be employed. The latter plea was successful: by 1944, most groups tracing pure influenza virus were using prepar ative ultracentrifugation. With the support of the OSDR-CMR committee, the most extensive work along this line had been conducted in Stanley’s laboratory at Princeton. Stanley’s commitment to ultracentrifuge was not “pragmatism” in the sense of looking for a cost-efficient method for purifying viruses. The ultra-centrifuge emerged out of his study of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) as a way of producing macromolecules. During the war, the machine sedimented as a whole research strategy with cognitive, technical, and social aspects. In Stanley’s laboratory, a

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