Doctoral Dissertation Research: Unifying Life: C.B. van Niel and the Ideals of the "Delft School" in Twentieth Century Biology

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9311191 Lesch The history of biology has traditionally been the history of complex organisms. By the mid-20th century, however, a radical shift had occurred in the object of study for a significant component within biology: the object of study became microorganisms, particularly viruses and bacteria rather than the more complex organisms. This transformation resulting in the creation of molecular biology revolutionized the whole discipline of biology. Ms. Susan B. Spath, working under the direction of Dr. John Lesch, is studying one of the sources of this transformation in the so-called "Delft School" of microbiology. She is focussing her dissertation research on C. B. van Niel (1897-1985), who brought the "Delft School" ideals to the United States when he became professor at Stanford University's marine biological station in 1929. Van Niel taught for over thirty years a celebrated course in which participated a remarkable number of the major players in the development of molecular biology. Ms. Spath is assessing the impact of this course on the way biology developed in the critical period when molecular biology was first forming as a distinct research program. She is also examining the definitions of the fundamental categories of cellular life as formulated by van Niel and his student and colleague Roger Stanier in 1962. ***