Dissertation Research: Making of the Recombinant University: The Emergence of Biotechnology at Stanford

项目概述：本论文考察了重组DNA研究和技术从20世纪70年代的学术起源到20世纪80年代的商业化发展。这个项目的重点是斯坦福大学的开发和使用，最初是由保罗·伯格和他的同事们构想的。关于基因工程发展的文献主要集中在斯坦利·科恩和赫伯特·博耶的重组DNA技术和随后的专利，以及博耶进入生物技术的冒险。然而，历史学家很少关注斯坦福大学生物化学系的作用，因此没有对重组DNA技术进行全面分析。对学术背景的忽视意味着，科恩和博耶对生物化学系科学家的亏欠并没有成为生物学商业化叙事的一部分。知识价值：通过在其广泛的科学背景下还原重组DNA技术的发展，本项目将增加有关其历史发展的新知识。这项研究强调，参与开发重组DNA技术的科学家并没有直接寻求开发基因工程技术。如果从正在进行的实验和物质文化的角度来看，这种意想不到的特征就更有意义了。这种强调将为生物学的商业化提供新的视角。通过分析意外导致重组DNA技术发展的实验，该项目将说明实验系统的不可预测性如何影响生物技术的出现。PI将通过关注共享和交换研究资料的文化，说明生物的商业化如何挑战和改变科学的道德经济，包括物质交换和信用分配。更广泛的影响：该项目将阐明学术生物学的商业化，包括学术界、政府和工业界之间不断变化的关系，以及生物医学知识的专利主张。本论文将阐明本地构建的实验系统如何具有全球意义的过程。它还将在政策导向的研究中有实际应用，包括科学政策、经济发展/产业政策和有关高等教育的政策。

Project Summary:This dissertation examines the development of recombinant DNA research and technology from its academic origins in the 1970s to its commercialization in the 1980s. The project focuses on its development and use at Stanford, as initially conceived by Paul Berg and his colleagues. The literature on the development of genetic engineering focuses on Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer's recombinant DNA technology and subsequent patenting, and Boyer's venture into biotechnology. Yet historians have paid little attention to the role of Stanford's Biochemistry Department, and thus there is no analysis of recombinant DNA technologies in its full context. Inattention to the academic context has meant that Cohen and Boyer's indebtedness to scientists in the Biochemistry Department has not been a part of the narrative of the commercialization of biology.Intellectual Merit: By resituating the development of recombinant DNA technologies in their broad scientific context, this project will add new knowledge about their historical development. This study emphasizes that scientists involved in developing recombinant DNA technologies were not directly seeking to develop technologies for genetic engineering. That unexpected feature makes fuller sense if examined in terms of ongoing experimentation and material culture. That emphasis will provide new perspective on the commercialization of biology. By analyzing experiments that unexpectedly led to the development of recombinant DNA technologies, the project will illustrate how the unpredictable nature of experimental systems influenced the emergence of biotechnology. By paying attention to the culture of sharing and exchanging research materials, the PI will specify how the commercialization of biology challenged and changed the moral economy of science, including material exchanges and distribution of credit.Broader Impacts: The project will illuminate the commercialization of academic biology, including the changing relationship between academy, government, and industry and the proprietary claims on biomedical knowledge. This dissertation will illuminate the process of how locally constructed experimental systems became globally significant. It will also have practical applications in policy-oriented research, including science policy, economic development/industrial policy, and policies regarding higher education.