Doctoral Dissertation Research: History of Aflatoxin and Liver Cancer

博士论文研究：黄曲霉毒素与肝癌的历史

• 批准号: 1555448
• 负责人: David Kaiser
• 金额: $ 1.38万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-03-15 至 2017-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1555448&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; History; Aflatoxin

Doctoral Dissertation Research: A History of Aflatoxin and Liver Cancer Cancer has emerged as a key object of biomedical research, clinical care, public health, and regulation in the last half of the 20th century. Aflatoxins are a class of mycotoxins, toxic chemicals produced by fungi that often grow on crops. Aflatoxins cause up to 172,000 cases of lethal liver cancer globally per year. This research project will study the production of knowledge about liver cancer and aflatoxin, as well as its causes and prevention by tracing the history of aflatoxins since the early 1960s when it was discovered by veterinarians as being responsible for the widespread death of poultry. The discovery of aflatoxins lead to studies asking if there was a causal link between aflatoxin and liver cancer in humans. In the 1970s, regulators had begun introducing thresholds for aflatoxin in food and feed and for prescribing standardized tests to determine aflatoxin contamination. Plant scientists began to study and identify the conditions of aflatoxin development in crops in order to prevent the occurrence in humans and livestock. This project will focus on how aflatoxin became a health problem, how different scientific disciplines, institutions, and research practices have interacted to produce knowledge about cancer, and how this knowledge shaped regulation and public health interventions. The findings will be used to guide policy targeting health safety and agriculture standards. This project contributes to the historical literature on science because biomedical understandings of the relation between aflatoxins and liver cancer has grown more complex, as scientists have studied the synergistic influences of genes, hepatitis virus infections, and aflatoxins on the carcinogenesis of liver cancer with methods of molecular epidemiology and tumor genome sequencing. The results of the research will be of interest to historians of science and scholars of development, regulation, and science policy. The research will be done in archives where scientific records of national and international health organizations are housed. The project will also complete oral histories to document how the disciplines of toxicology, epidemiology, veterinary medicine, and plant sciences have interacted to produce knowledge about cancer and aflatoxins. The project will explore the relationship of laboratory and field by studying how regulatory regimes and scientific knowledge have influenced each other since the early 1960s. In addition the project will map out the research networks formed by scientists to understand how different scales, disciplines, and settings of research and regulation interacted to produce knowledge about cancer and aflatoxins. The project will show how research interactions, practices and approaches changed as the Cold War ended and genetics gained an increasing importance in the life sciences. A historical understanding of the interaction of regulatory regimes and knowledge-making will help to develop more effective policies.

博士论文研究：黄曲霉毒素和肝癌的历史在20世纪后半叶，癌症已经成为生物医学研究、临床护理、公共卫生和监管的关键对象。黄曲霉毒素是一类真菌毒素，是由生长在农作物上的真菌产生的有毒化学物质。黄曲霉毒素每年在全球造成多达172，000例致命肝癌。本研究项目将通过追溯自20世纪60年代初兽医发现黄曲霉毒素是导致家禽广泛死亡的原因以来，黄曲霉毒素的历史，研究肝癌和黄曲霉毒素知识的产生，以及其原因和预防。黄曲霉毒素的发现引发了一系列研究，即黄曲霉毒素与人类肝癌之间是否存在因果关系。在20世纪70年代，监管机构开始引入食品和饲料中黄曲霉毒素的阈值，并规定标准化测试以确定黄曲霉毒素污染。植物科学家开始研究和确定黄曲霉毒素在作物中发展的条件，以防止在人类和牲畜中发生。该项目将重点关注黄曲霉毒素如何成为一个健康问题，不同的科学学科，机构和研究实践如何相互作用，以产生有关癌症的知识，以及这些知识如何塑造监管和公共卫生干预措施。调查结果将用于指导针对健康安全和农业标准的政策。该项目有助于科学的历史文献，因为黄曲霉毒素和肝癌之间的关系的生物医学理解已经变得更加复杂，因为科学家们已经研究了基因，肝炎病毒感染和黄曲霉毒素对肝癌致癌作用的协同影响，分子流行病学和肿瘤基因组测序的方法。研究结果将引起科学史学家和发展、监管和科学政策学者的兴趣。这项研究将在存放国家和国际卫生组织科学记录的档案馆中进行。该项目还将完成口述历史，以记录毒理学，流行病学，兽医学和植物科学的学科如何相互作用，以产生有关癌症和黄曲霉毒素的知识。 该项目将通过研究自1960年代初以来监管制度和科学知识如何相互影响，探讨实验室和实地的关系。此外，该项目还将绘制出科学家形成的研究网络，以了解不同规模、学科以及研究和监管环境如何相互作用，以产生有关癌症和黄曲霉毒素的知识。该项目将展示随着冷战结束和遗传学在生命科学中的重要性日益增加，研究互动，实践和方法如何改变。从历史上了解监管制度和知识积累之间的相互作用，将有助于制定更有效的政策。