William McElroy, the McCollum-Pratt Institute, and the Transformation of Biology at Johns Hopkins, 1945--1960 (2009)
In 1948, a dynamic junior member of the Johns Hopkins Biology Department, William McElroy, became the first director of the McCollum--Pratt Institute for the Investigation of Micronutrient Elements. The Institute was founded at the university to further studies into the practicalities of animal nutrition. Ultimately, however, the Institute reflected McElroy's vision that all biological problems, including nutrition, could be best investigated through basic biochemical and enzyme studies. The Institute quickly became a hub of biochemical research over the following decade, producing foundational work on metabolism and a respected series of symposia. In this paper, I argue that McElroy's biochemical vantage on biology also permeated the traditionally morphological and embryological Biology Department at Hopkins. Largely due to the activity of McElroy and the Institute, the faculty, course offerings, and research underwent a radical reorientation toward biochemistry and molecular biology in the 1950s, even while maintaining a commitment to developmental biology. While the history of postwar biology is often told as the ascendancy of the new biology over traditional biology, the case of McElroy and the McCollum--Pratt Institute affords an opportunity for historical examination of biochemical and molecular science as a lens through which all branches of biology at an institution were reconceived and unified.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Vandenhaute, Jean;
(2007)
Regard rétro---et prospectif sur la biologie moléculaire
(/isis/citation/CBB000720148/)
Essay Review
Daniele Cozzoli;
(2022)
The Age of Molecular Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB172210987/)
Article
Yi, Doogab;
(2008)
Cancer, Viruses, and Mass Migration: Paul Berg's Venture into Eukaryotic Biology and the Advent of Recombinant DNA Research and Technology, 1967--1980
(/isis/citation/CBB000850680/)
Article
Hans-Jürgen Apell;
(2018)
Finding Na,K-ATPase: I - From Cell to Molecule
(/isis/citation/CBB428130959/)
Article
Brockwell, John;
Sprent, Janet I.;
Day, David A.;
(2013)
Fraser John Bergersen 1929--2011
(/isis/citation/CBB001211868/)
Article
David R. Singleton;
Rivers Singleton;
(2017)
Remembering Our Forebears: Albert Jan Kluyver and the Unity of Life
(/isis/citation/CBB766326866/)
Article
Vray, Bernard;
(2002)
Les apports de la biologie moléculaire à la paléoparasitologie
(/isis/citation/CBB000932412/)
Article
Hagen, Joel B.;
(2010)
Waiting for Sequences: Morris Goodman, Immunodiffusion Experiments, and the Origins of Molecular Anthropology
(/isis/citation/CBB001022394/)
Article
García-Sancho, Miguel;
(2010)
A New Insight into Sanger's Development of Sequencing: From Proteins to DNA, 1943--1977
(/isis/citation/CBB001022367/)
Article
Strasser, Bruno J.;
(2010)
Collecting, Comparing, and Computing Sequences: The Making of Margaret O. Dayhoff's Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure, 1954--1965
(/isis/citation/CBB001022392/)
Book
Bernardino Fantini;
Fabrizio Rufo;
(2017)
Il codice della vita. Una storia della genetica tra scienza e bioetica
(/isis/citation/CBB297801530/)
Book
Wilkins, Maurice;
(2003)
The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice Wilkins
(/isis/citation/CBB000651823/)
Book
Sapp, Jan;
(2009)
The New Foundations of Evolution: On the Tree of Life
(/isis/citation/CBB000952774/)
Article
O'Malley, Maureen A.;
(2008)
“Everything is everywhere: but the environment selects”: Ubiquitous Distribution and Ecological Determinism in Microbial Biogeography
(/isis/citation/CBB000831713/)
Article
Lazcano, Antonio;
(2012)
The Biochemical Roots of the RNA World: from Zymonucleic Acid to Ribozymes
(/isis/citation/CBB001251465/)
Article
Karl S. Matlin;
(2016)
The Heuristic of Form: Mitochondrial Morphology and the Explanation of Oxidative Phosphorylation
(/isis/citation/CBB047658626/)
Article
Carsten Reinhardt;
(2017)
“This Other Method”: The Dynamics of NMR in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB615881914/)
Article
Gibbons, Michelle G.;
(2012)
Reassessing Discovery: Rosalind Franklin, Scientific Visualization, and the Structure of DNA
(/isis/citation/CBB001210576/)
Book
Soňa Štrbáňová;
(2016)
Holding Hands with Bacteria: The Life and Work of Marjory Stephenson
(/isis/citation/CBB867814972/)
Book
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg;
(2001)
Experimentalsysteme und epistemische Dinge: Eine Geschichte der Proteinsynthese im Reagenzglas
(/isis/citation/CBB000410066/)
Be the first to comment!