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Article ID: CBB001421075

Mutations in Soviet Public Health Science: Post-Lysenko Medical Genetics, 1969--1991 (2014)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 47, Part A
Issue: Part A
Pages: 163-172
Publication date: 2014
Language: English

Publication Date: 2014
Edition Details: Article in a special section: “Heredity and The Study of Human Populations After 1945”

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Human genetics Public health Medical genetics Cold War Drosophila Mutation 20th century Soviet Union Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich

This paper traces the integration of human genetics with Soviet public health science after the Lysenko era. For nearly three decades, USSR biology pursued its own version of anti-bourgeois, Soviet `creative Darwinism', departing from western, post-WWII scientific developments. After Lysenko was suspended, research niches of immunology, biophysics and mutation research formed the basis of new departments at the Institute of Medical Genetics, which was founded in 1969 as part of the Soviet Academy of Medical Sciences. Focussing on early research activities and collaborations at the institute, I show how the concept of mutagenesis, a pivotal issue during the Cold War, became mobilized from Drosophila genetics to human heredity and to society as a whole. This mode of scaling up and down through population studies shaped not only Soviet human biology and genetics; it also brought about changes in clinical practice and public health as well as in the monitoring and regulation of mutagenic agents in the environment.

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Article Bangham, Jenny; Chadarevian, Soraya de (2014) Human Heredity after 1945: Moving Populations Centre Stage. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 45-49). unapi

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