Dissertation Research: The Rise of the Digital Organism: How Computers Shaped Biology

论文研究：数字有机体的兴起：计算机如何塑造生物学

• 批准号: 0323670
• 负责人: Angela Creager
• 金额: $ 0.99万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-09-01 至 2005-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0323670&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Rise; Digital; Organism

Electronic computers have become a sine qua non of almost all research in modern biology and medicine. The overwhelming majority of those who investigate biological processes--from the molecular level to the global--employ computers to help them make observations, manage data, perform calculations, design and test theoretical models, and discuss their findings. Serving in these capacities, computer technology has radically transformed how biologists approach their subject matter, both in academic researchsettings and in the multi-billion dollar biotechnology industry. The ubiquitous computer has profoundly influenced the way in which members of the scientific community and of broader society understand themselves in relation to other organisms and the environment. Yet for all of the practical and conceptual changes associated with computers in late-twentieth century research, professional historians have only begun to study the impact of computer technology on the life sciences. In part, this is due to the paucity of historical analysis of biology during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the existing publications on the computer's impact on physics and meteorology as well as the ongoing debates on the emergence of "big" molecular biology over the past five decades indicate how a thorough exploration of the computer's influence on biology would be valuable and how one could use the framework of existing work to launch such an exploration. By investigating biologists' original motives for bringing computers into their laboratories, and by examining how they actually made use of these computers, this Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant will shed light on how biology's objects of study, especially the enormously complex gene, were transformed from exemplars of systems that computers could not describe into exemplars of systems that computers could describe. The project will approach this problem by examining how three postwar projects concerning the scientific uses of computers shaped research practices and conceptions in biology: 1) the early advocacy for the use of computers in biological research, led by Robert Ledley, Lee Lusted, and Bruce Waxman; 2) the joint MIT-National Institutes of Health-Digital Equipment Corporation LINC (Laboratory Instrument) project; and 3) the Stanford-based DENDRAL (Dendritic Algorithm) project, led by Edward Feigenbaum, Bruce Buchanan, and Joshua Lederberg. Beyond reconstructing how computers came to be standard equipment in the laboratories of biologists, the project aims to understand how the notion that the organism is analogous to digital computer software became so deeply entrenched so quickly. NSF funds will support trips to archives at MIT, Cambridge, Stanford University, and NIH.

电子计算机已成为现代生物学和医学几乎所有研究的必要条件。绝大多数研究生物过程（从分子水平到全球）的人都使用计算机来帮助他们进行观察，管理数据，进行计算，设计和测试理论模型，并讨论他们的发现。在这些能力中，计算机技术已经从根本上改变了生物学家如何处理他们的主题，无论是在学术研究环境中还是在数十亿美元的生物技术产业中。无处不在的计算机深刻地影响了科学界和更广泛的社会成员理解自己与其他生物和环境的关系的方式。然而，尽管在世纪后期的研究中，计算机带来了许多实际的和概念上的变化，但专业历史学家们才刚刚开始研究计算机技术对生命科学的影响。在某种程度上，这是由于在20世纪的最后25年里缺乏对生物学的历史分析。尽管如此，现有的出版物对计算机的影响物理学和气象学以及正在进行的辩论出现的“大”分子生物学在过去的五十年表明如何彻底探索计算机的影响生物学将是有价值的，以及如何可以使用现有的工作框架来启动这样的探索。通过调查生物学家将计算机带入实验室的原始动机，并通过检查他们实际上如何使用这些计算机，这项科学和技术研究论文改进补助金将揭示生物学的研究对象，特别是极其复杂的基因，是如何从计算机无法描述的系统范例转变为计算机可以描述的系统范例的。该项目将通过研究战后三个关于计算机科学应用的项目如何塑造生物学的研究实践和概念来解决这个问题：1）由Robert Ledley，Lee Lusted和布鲁斯瓦克斯曼领导的早期倡导在生物学研究中使用计算机; 2）麻省理工学院-国立卫生研究院-数字设备公司LINC（实验室仪器）项目; 3）斯坦福大学的DENDRAL（树突算法）项目，由Edward Feigenbaum，布鲁斯布坎南和约书亚Lederberg领导。除了重建计算机如何成为生物学家实验室的标准设备之外，该项目还旨在了解生物体类似于数字计算机软件的概念如何如此迅速地根深蒂固。 国家科学基金会的资金将支持前往麻省理工学院、剑桥、斯坦福大学和国家卫生研究院的档案馆。