The Life of a Virus: Tobacco Mosaic Virus as an Experimental Model, 1930-1965 - Softcover

Creager, Angela N. H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226120260 ISBN 13: 9780226120263

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2001

Synopsis

We normally think of viruses in terms of the devastating diseases they cause, from smallpox to AIDS. But in The Life of a Virus, Angela N. H. Creager introduces us to a plant virus that has taught us much of what we know about all viruses, including the lethal ones, and that also played a crucial role in the development of molecular biology.

Focusing on the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) research conducted in Nobel laureate Wendell Stanley's lab, Creager argues that TMV served as a model system for virology and molecular biology, much as the fruit fly and laboratory mouse have for genetics and cancer research. She examines how the experimental techniques and instruments Stanley and his colleagues developed for studying TMV were generalized not just to other labs working on TMV, but also to research on other diseases such as poliomyelitis and influenza and to studies of genes and cell organelles. The great success of research on TMV also helped justify increased spending on biomedical research in the postwar years (partly through the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis's March of Dimes)—a funding priority that has continued to this day.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Focusing on the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) research conducted in Nobel laureate Wendell Stanley's lab, Angela N. H. Creager argues that TMV served as a model system for virology and molecular biology, much as the fruit fly and laboratory mouse have been models in genetics and cancer research. She examines how the experimental techniques and instruments Stanley and his colleagues developed for studying TMV were generalized, not just to other labs working on TMV, but also to research on other diseases such as poliomyelitis and influenza and to studies of genes and cell organelles. In The Life of a Virus, Angela N. H. Creager introduces us to a plant virus that has taught us much of what we know about all viruses, including the lethal ones, and that has also played a crucial role in the development of molecular biology.

About the Author:

Angela N. H. Creager is an associate professor in the Department of History and the Program in the History of Sciences at Princeton University.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0226120260
• ISBN 13: 9780226120263
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352