Emergence of Molecular Biology: Scientific and Philosophical Revolutions

分子生物學的崛起：科學與哲學的革命

Books with broad historical coverage

Brock, T. D. (1990) The Emergence of Bacterial Genetics. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. [ YM

Library ]

An account of the early history of modern bacterial genetics (paralleling molecular biology). Emphasis on scientific rather than personal or social aspects.

Cairns, J., Stent, G.S., and Watson, J.D. (1992) Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

(1966, reprinted in 1992). [ YM Library - both editions]

This collection of stories, told by some biologists whose work and careers have been strongly influenced by Max Delbrück (or, in the case of a few, had influenced him), is dedicated to him on his 60th birthday.

Jacob, F. (1973) The Logic of Life. Princeton University Press.

Judson, H.F. (1996) The Eighth Day of Creation . Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

Authoritative, definitive, and vivid; the standard against which all others are measured. Detailed without being overly technical, humane without being fulsome. Excellently researched with lots of first-hand reference materials.

Morange, M. (1998) A History of Molecular Biology. Harvard University Press.

A much shorter and concise early history of molecular biology by a biologist (Biochemistry, U. of Paris).

Olby, R.C. (1994) The Path to the Double Helix. Dover Publications.

Portugal, F.H., and Cohen, J.S. (1977) A Century of DNA. MIT Press.

Sturtevant, A. H. (1965) A History of Genetics . Free digital book at http://www.esp.org/books/sturt/history/readbook.html.

Covering only the early part of molecular biology.

Books with specific topics

Brenner, S. (2001) My Life in Science. BioMed Central. http://www.biomedcentral.com/offers/brenner/brenner.asp

Crick, F. (1988) What Mad Pursuit. Basic Books. [YM Library]

Autobiography of Crick with an emphasis on the period of double helix and genetic code. Very philosophical.

Dyson, F. (1985) Origins of Life. Oxford University Press

A short book on theories and experiments concerning the origins of life — particularly on the two distinct aspects of ‘hardware’ vs. ‘software’. The author argues that there life began twice (thus the word ‘origins’ in the title).

Holmes F. L. (2001) Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA: A History of 'The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology.' Yale University Press

VERY detailed account of this particular research.

Kay, L. (2000) Who wrote the book of life?: A History of the Genetic Code. Stanford University Press.

A long account of the decoding effort of physicists and biologists. Too much trivial and insufficient important science.

Keller, E.F. (1983) A feeling for the organism: the life and work of Barbara McClintock. W.H. Freeman. [YM Library]

《玉米田裡的先知 : 異類遺傳學家麥克林托克》 唐嘉慧譯，天下，1995 [YM Library]

Kuhn, T.S. (1996) The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press. [YM Library]

《科學革命的結構》 程樹德等編譯，允晨，1985. [YM Library]

Here is an excellent essay on this topic: 天才的世紀之迷思 [PDF] (http://www.sciscape.org/articles/genius/)

Lagerkvist, U. (1998) DNA pioneers and their legacy. Yale University Press.

Luria, S.E. (1984) A slot machine, a broken test tube. Harper & Row.

《吃角子老虎與破試管》 房樹生譯，天下, 1996. [YM Library]

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Maddox, B. (2002) Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA. HarperCollins.

The newest account of Rosalind Franklin with a detailed account of her complete (short) scientific life.

《吃角子老虎與破試管》 房樹生譯，天下, 1996. [YM Library]

Sayre, A. (1975) Rosalind Franklin and DNA. Norton.

Schrödinger, E. (1967) What is life? Cambridge University Press. [YM Library]

《DNA 光環背後的奇女子》 楊玉齡譯，天下，2004 [YM Library]

Watson, J.D., and Stent, G.S. (1998) The double helix. Scribner.

《雙螺旋》 陳正萱、張項譯，時報文化，1998 [YM Library]

A ultra-short web version is here: http://www.accessexcellence.org/AB/CC/watsonpres.html

Research Papers

Miller, J.H. (1996) Discovering molecular genetics. [Collection of papers] Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press [YM Library]

Avery, MacLeod and McCarty 1944 Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumococcal types. Induction of transformation by a desoxyribonucleic acid fraction isolated from Pneumococcus Type III. J. Expt. Med. 79: 137-158 [PDF]

Beckwith and Signer 1966 Transposition of the lac region of Escherichia coli. I Inversion of the lac operon and transduction of lac by 80. J. Mol. Biol. 19: 254 –265 [PDF]

Benzer, S. 1955. Fine structure of a genetic region in bacteriophage. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 41 : 344-354. [PDF]

Brenner, Jacob and Meselson 1961, An unstable intermediate carrying information from genes to ribosomes for protein synthesis. Nature 190: 576-581.

Crick 1970 Central dogma of molecular biology, Nature 227: 561 – 562 [HTM]Read it here: http://www.euchromatin.org/Crick01.htm

Cricket, Barnett, Brenner, and Watts-Tobin 1961 General nature of the genetic code for proteins. Nature 192: 1227–1232. [PDF]

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Hershey and Chase 1952, Independent function of the viral protein and nucleic acid fraction I growth of bacteriophage. J. Gen. Physiol. 36: 39-56. [PDF]

Jacob and Monod 1961 Genetic regulatory mechanisms in the synthesis of proteins. J. Mol. Biol, 3: 318-356.

Jacob, Perrin, Sanchez and Monod 1960, Compte Rendus des Seances de l’Academie des Sciences, 250: 1727-1729. (Translated from the French)

Lederberg and Tatum 1946 Genetic recombination in Escherichia coli. Nature 158: 558 [PDF]

Luria .and Delbrück 1943 Mutations of bacteria from virus sensitive to virus resistant. Genetics, 28: 491-511. [PDF]

Meselson and Stahl 1958 The replication of DNA in Escherichia coli. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 44: 671-682.

Nirenberg and Mattaei 1961, The dependence of cell-free protein synthesis in E. coli upon naturally occurring or synthetic polyribonucleotides. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 47: 1588-1602. [PDF]

Pardee, Jacob, and Monod 1959 The genetic control and cytoplasmic expression of “inducibility” in the synthesis of β-galactosidase by E. coli. J. Mol. Biol. 1: 165-178. [PDF]

Tatum and Lederberg 1947 Genetic recombination in the bacterium Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 53: 673-684 [PDF]

Watson and Crick 1953, Molecular structure of nucleic acids. Nature 171: 737-738. Nature’s digital reprint: http://www.nature.com/genomics/human/watson-crick/

Annotated and printable version: http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/coldspring/ideas/printit.html

Watson and Crick 1953, Genetical implications of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid. Nature, 171: 964-967. [PDF]

Reviews and Essays Delbrück 1949 A physicist Looks at biology Transactions of The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 38: 173-190 [HTM]

(http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/snowbird/prefaces/essay_delbrueck.htm)

Delbrück 1969 A physicist's renewed look [HTM] (http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1969/delbruck-lecture.html)

Hays, B, The Invention of the Genetic Code. American Scientist online (HTM, PDF, Postscrip)(http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/Comsci98/compsci9801.html)

Stent, G. S. 1966 Waiting for the Paradox. From: Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology, CSHL Press [HTM](http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/snowbird/prefaces/essay_stent.htm)

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Stent, G. S. 1968 That was the Molecular Biology that was. Science cix (): 390-395

Stent, G. S. 1972 Prematurity and uniqueness in scientific discovery. Sci Am 227: 84-93.

陳文盛 2001 「分子生物學的啟示」《線索》附錄四，天下 [YM Library] (http://www.ym.edu.tw/ig/cwc/mbt/lessons.html)

Internet ResourcesESP (Electronic Scholarly Publishing, http://www.esp.org/

Collection of many (free) digital classical genetics papers and books (including A. H. Sturtevant. A History of Genetics). ‘Genetics in Context’ – a comparative timeline.

Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology Laureates http://www.nobel.se/medicine/index.htmlOfficial web site of Nobel Prize. All the laureates are here with short biography, and their award lectures.

DNA From The Beginning http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s educational web site. History of genetics in animation — the best part. Contains biography of the pioneers, interesting photos, and

problem set. Relatively easy scientific contents.

話說 DNA http://dna.ym.edu.twChinese version of DNA From The Beginning. Incomplete. Under construction by our group.

Mendel’s paper in English http://www.mendelweb.org/Mendel.html

The complete paper with useful explanations, notes and links. This is not demanded by this course, but have you read this original paper, which is the origin of genetics?

Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA http://osulibrary.orst.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/dna/index.htmlA detailed documentary history of the pursuit of the discovery of DNA structure. With numerous scanned documents, photographs, audio and video clips. Rich

source for first- and second-hand information. Highly recommended for the double helix story.

Secret of Photo 51 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/Based on a public TV special program on Franklin and her role in the discovery of double helix. Contains the program transcript (good read), valuable illustrated

explanations of the science involved, and a list of related web sites and books

Profiles in Science http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/Extensive collection of selected few prominent scientists (notably Oswald Avery, Joshua Lederberg, Barbara McClintock, Linus Pauling, and Marshall

Nirenberg)

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Caltech Archives Oral Histories Online http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/Transcripts (PDF) of interviews with faculty members (e.g., Seymour Benzer, Max Delbrück, Linus Pauling) and related scientists.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives http://nucleus.cshl.org/CSHLlib/archives/A special collection of James Watson, archives of CSH Symposia.

BioMed Central Science Archive http://www.biomedcentral.com/sciencearchive/Video collections (only 4 now) available in the beta test period. The interview with Sydney Brenner constitute the main body of Brenner’s autobiography: ‘My Life in

Science’.

DNA: The King’s Story http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/archives/dna/index.htmlThe DNA story from the King’s College’s views.

DNA 50 Anniversary http://www.nature.com/nsu/DNA50/Nature’s celebration site for the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix.

Donald S. Fredrickson Papers http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/FF/Views/Exhibit/visuals/rdna.htmlArchives of Donald S. Fredrickson’s paper on regulation of recombinant DNMA research.

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