Visions of Cell Biology

Reflections Inspired by Cowdry's "General Cytology"

Karl S. Matlin, Jane Maienschein, Manfred D. Laubichler, Karl S. Matlin, Jane Maienschein, Manfred D. Laubichler

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780226520513, 9780226520483
• eBook ISBN: 9780226520650
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Cell Biology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Although modern cell biology is often considered to have arisen following World War II in tandem with certain technological and methodological advances—in particular, the electron microscope and cell fractionation—its origins actually date to the 1830s and the development of cytology, the scientific study of cells. By 1924, with the publication of Edmund Vincent Cowdry's General Cytology, the discipline had stretched beyond the bounds of purely microscopic observation to include the chemical, physical, and genetic analysis of cells. Inspired by Cowdry's classic, watershed work, this book collects contributions from cell biologists, historians, and philosophers of science to explore the history and current status of cell biology.

Despite extraordinary advances in describing both the structure and function of cells, cell biology tends to be overshadowed by molecular biology, a field that developed contemporaneously. This book remedies that unjust disparity through an investigation of cell biology's evolution and its role in pushing forward the boundaries of biological understanding. Contributors show that modern concepts of cell organization, mechanistic explanations, epigenetics, molecular thinking, and even computational approaches all can be placed on the continuum of cell studies from cytology to cell biology and beyond. The first book in the series Convening Science: Discovery at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Visions of Cell Biology sheds new light on a century of cellular discovery.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• contents
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Changing Ideas about Cells as Complex Systems
• 3. In Search of Cell Architecture: General Cytology and Early Twentieth-Century Conceptions of Cell Organization
• 4. Methodological Reflections in General Cytology in Historical Perspective
• 5. Cellular Pathogenesis: Virus Inclusions and Histochemistry
• 6. The Age of a Cell: Cell Aging in Cowdry’s Problems of Ageing and Beyond
• 7. Visualizing the Cell: Pictorial Styles and Their Epistemic Goals in General Cytology
• 8. Thomas Hunt Morgan and the Role of Chromosomes in Heredity
• 9. Epigenetics and Beyond
• 10. Heads and Tails: Molecular Imagination and the Lipid Bilayer, 1917–1941
• 11. Pictures and Parts: Representation of Form and the Epistemic Strategy of Cell Biology
• 12. Observing the Living Cell: Shinya Inoué and the Reemergence of Light Microscopy
• 13. Enriching the Strategies for Creating Mechanistic Explanations in Biology
• 14. Updating Cowdry’s Theories: The Role of Models in Contemporary Experimental and Computational Cell Biology
• Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• Index
• Plates