ABSTRACT
Lewis Victor Heilbrunn has been called the pioneer of Ca2+ as an intracellular regulator (Campbell AK. Cell Calcium 7: 287-296, 1986; Campbell AK. Intracellular Calcium, 2015). In 1947, he was the first to provide convincing evidence that Ca2+ triggered muscle contraction (Heilbrunn LV, Wiercinski FJ. J Cell Comp Physiol 29: 15-32, 1947). Yet his work was met mostly with silence and neglect. One wonders why. Heilbrunn was a general physiologist who believed in the uniformity of nature with regard to movement. He believed that ". . . the theory of what makes cells divide should not be very different from the theory of what makes muscle contract . . ." (Heilbrunn LV. The Dynamics of Living Protoplasm, 1956). He did not believe that one could understand how the living machine worked by investigating its parts. He believed that, to understand life, one must study the dynamics of living protoplasm. The origin and evolution of Heilbrunn's thought process regarding the role of Ca2+ as a physiological activator will be traced back to the 1920s. The ways in which he tested the Ca2+ hypothesis in sea urchin eggs in the 1920s and 1930s will be explored. This work shaped Heilbrunn's thinking about the role of Ca2+ in muscle contraction. Importantly, why he and his results were ignored for years will be examined. It turned out that being right was not enough. Bad luck and a stubborn belief in an outmoded scientific philosophy contributed to the neglect.
Subject(s)
Calcium , Medical Laboratory Personnel/history , Muscle Contraction , Physiology/history , Calcium/physiology , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , Humans , Male , Muscle Contraction/physiologySubject(s)
Neonatology , Physicians , Reproductive Techniques, Assisted , Female , Fertility Preservation/history , Fetomaternal Transfusion/history , France , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Medical Laboratory Personnel/history , Neonatology/history , Physicians/history , Pregnancy , Reproductive Techniques, Assisted/historySubject(s)
Neoplasms/pathology , Pathology, Clinical , Physician Executives , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , Medical Laboratory Personnel/history , National Cancer Institute (U.S.)/history , New York , Pathology, Clinical/history , Physician Executives/history , United StatesABSTRACT
This article examines the history of yellow fever research carried out in West Africa in the 1940s by Rockefeller Foundation scientists. It engages with a number of debates in the history of medical research in colonial Africa, including experimentation, the construction of the "field," and biosecurity.
Subject(s)
Academies and Institutes/history , Medical Laboratory Personnel/history , Yellow Fever/history , Foundations/history , History, 20th Century , Humans , Nigeria , Research/history , Research DesignSubject(s)
Biology , Medical Laboratory Personnel , Personnel, Hospital , Publishing , Biology/history , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , Medical Laboratory Personnel/history , Paris , Personnel, Hospital/history , Pharmacists/history , Physicians/history , Publishing/history , WorkforceABSTRACT
The early 1980s saw a 'paradigm change' in how donated blood was handled and used by blood centres, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. In Sweden, a five-year state-financed R&D programme initiated a swift modernization process, an alleged 'revolution' of existing blood centre practices. In this article, we use interviews and archival material to analyse the role of female biomedical technicians in this rapid technical and organizational change. In focus is their working knowledge, or savoir-faire, of blood, instruments and techniques. We give a detailed analysis of technicians' embrained and embodied skills to create safety in blood and its representations, handle contingencies and invent new procedures and techniques. These transformations are analysed as sociomaterial entanglements, where the doing and undoing of gender, sociomaterial practices, hierarchies of authority and expertise, and emotions are intertwined.
Subject(s)
Blood Banks/history , Laboratories, Hospital/history , Medical Laboratory Personnel/history , Blood Banks/organization & administration , Blood Transfusion/history , Female , Gender Identity , History, 20th Century , Humans , Interviews as Topic , Laboratories, Hospital/organization & administration , Professional Competence , Sex Factors , Social Change , SwedenABSTRACT
This is an obituary for Richard Hudson Quarles, an internationally renowned neuroscientist, who retired in 2007 after 39 years at the National Institutes of Health, and who died August 9, 2015 in Sandy Spring, Maryland, USA. Richard Hudson Quarles, circa 1984, courtesy of The NIH Record newsletter.
Subject(s)
Medical Laboratory Personnel/history , National Institutes of Health (U.S.)/history , Neurosciences/history , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , United StatesABSTRACT
Laboratory technicians are a vital part of any working lab. Not only is their knowledge and expertise important for the success of research, but they also often maintain the lab's intellectual and social life. Despite the importance of their work, they are rarely acknowledged in publications, and leave only a few traces within the historical recordthe voices of women laboratory technicians are even harder to uncover. This paper attempts to correct this imbalance by presenting the narratives of women who worked as laboratory technicians at places such as the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), the Wellcome Research Laboratories, and established hospital and university labs in Cambridge, Oxford and London. The data were collected though narrative interviews. Specifically, the paper looks at the roles of these women within the lab, their experiences of the social and gender dynamics of the lab, and the development of expertise in regard to the work they carried out and the extent to which they received credit for their contributions to science.
