Dame Anne McLaren (1927-2007)

Anne McLaren (picture sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_McLaren)

Anne McLaren (picture sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org

It’s always great to receive comments and feedback from our blog readers, especially those which suggest subjects or people which we haven’t yet featured. We have a growing list of posts to respond to our readers’ suggestions, and we are delighted that our first of these focuses on Dame Anne McLaren.

Anne McLaren was a hugely important figure in the fields of mammalian reproductive and developmental biology and genetics, and she is possibly best known for her work as director of the Medical Research Council Mammalian Development Unit at University College London. Her long and rich career in the techniques and ethics of fertility is covered in ample detail in John Biggers’ excellent obituary: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/jul/10/uk.obituaries

In this blog, I want to focus specifically on McLaren’s time in Edinburgh, and her appearances in our archive collections. After gaining her degree at Oxford and completing postdoctoral work in London, McLaren moved to Edinburgh in 1959 with her then-husband Donald Michie. She joined the Agricultural Research Council’s Unit of Animal Genetics (based within the Institute of Animal Genetics), working initially on the reproductive physiology of the mouse with Alan Beatty and others. During her time at the Institute, McLaren’s research spanned mammalian fertility, embryo transfer techniques and immunocontraception. She was particularly interested in egg transfer, the hormonal control of ovulation, superovulation and its effects on pregnancy, placental and foetal growth, and the effects of the uterine environment on skeletal character. She and John Biggers were the first to demonstrate that a mammalian embryo grown in vitro for several days would subsequently develop into a normal adult. McLaren also worked with chimeras (organisms consisting of two or more genetically different kinds of tissue), and her later book on the subject, published in 1976, became a classic text.

McLaren was well liked and respected in Edinburgh. The correspondence of Institute of Animal Genetics director C.H. Waddington reveals that he proposed McLaren for Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1968 (he was disappointed that she was not elected until 1974, after she had left the Institute), with F.W. Rogers Brambell as seconder. Waddington’s statement of support commends McLaren’s work on the reproductive biology of the mouse, and in particular the rigour of her statistical and quantitative approach. Waddington also praises her personal attributes: ‘She has in a high degree an ability found only in some scientists of being both highly critical and extremely helpful. Very many workers, at all levels from the young to quite mature ones, like to talk over with her some subject they are tackling, confident that she will spot any weaknesses in their arguments, or, more positively, coax them into thinking straighter than they had done before.’ (Coll-41/9/4/4)

Alan Beatty’s papers contain the most information relating to McLaren, as they worked closely together until McLaren departed for London in 1974. They secured a series of grants from the Ford Foundation for a sustained programme of work on reproductive physiology, and together with colleagues, they lobbied for a Centre for Reproductive Biology to be established in Edinburgh (which occurred in 1980). Beatty’s archive reveals an active and busy schedule of planning meetings and funding applications underpinning he and McLaren’s research. Letters from McLaren after her departure to London show that she continued to take an interest in matters in Edinburgh, and stayed in touch with old colleagues and friends.

In London, McLaren’s research took her on to study the development of mammalian primordial germ cells, and she published an acclaimed book on the subject in 1980. After her retirement from the MGU, she became principal research associate at the Welcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute in Cambridge. Anne McLaren died aged 80, along with her former husband Donald Michie, in a car accident en route from Cambridge to London on 7 July 2007.

Importantly, McLaren’s scientific work formed the basis of her wider engagement with ethical and societal issues surrounding fertility and reproduction, and, later, stem cell research and cloning technologies. She sat on the Warnock Committee, which contributed to the passing of the 1987 Family Law Reform Act and the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. A copy of one of her articles, titled ‘The Future of the Family’, was retained by Waddington in his papers, and demonstrates that, for McLaren, science has the potential to direct humans towards a better society. The article, written in 1972, concludes:

People in the future will be faced with more leisure: I hope that they will use it for a greater degree of democratic participation in the running of our society; for self-education, aided by computers whose tutorial intelligences will soon be at our disposal; and above all for the benefit of their smaller families of children. It is in the early years of life that personalities are moulded and the foundations of ethical systems laid: we must find out how not to cripple children’s minds as most, perhaps all, are crippled today, and how to instil an ethic of loyalty and protectiveness which begins with other members of the family and does not stop at national boundaries, but extends for the first time over the entire human race.

Clare Button
Project Archivist
If you have a topic relating to animal genetics in Edinburgh which you’d like to see covered, get in touch!

 

Picture Perfect!

Photo album coverBeing lucky, as I am, to work with a wide variety of archival collections relating to the history of animal genetics in Edinburgh, it can be mightily difficult to select an all-time ‘favourite’ item. However, it was ‘make-up-your-mind time’ last month at the University of Edinburgh’s Innovative Learning Week, when myself and several colleagues from the Centre for Research Collections were invited to give a Pecha Kucha (a fast-paced and time-controlled) presentation on our favourite items or aspects of the collections with which we work.

For me, there were a few strong contenders, but the ultimate winner had to be a photograph album presented to C.H. Waddington, the director of the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh, by his staff and students on the occasion of his 50th birthday in 1955.

Wad presentation of album

The beautifully presented volume is still in perfect condition and contains a wonderful selection of photographs, all with careful names and annotations. The more formal portraits of staff and scientific researchers give a unique insight into laboratory and research work in the 1950s. In terms of white coats and microscopes, not much has changed today, but I’m not so sure about this suave example of pipe-smoking!

George Clayton

The album also contains pictures of individuals who don’t always feature in the official histories of Edinburgh’s animal genetics community, including the scientists’ wives. The Institute was sometimes rumoured to be a hotbed of scandal and intrigue, so one would like to have been a fly on the wall at this particular party…

Wives cropped

I also love the informal and humorous photographs in the album, which paint a much more individual and human picture of the geneticists’ lives and working environment than can be gained simply through printed papers, research reports and official correspondence. Who can fail to be inspired by pictures of an amateur ballet based on the fruit fly Drosophila, for example?

Drosophila ballet cropped

You can watch a video of the Pecha Kucha here: http://vimeo.com/87273640

A New Arrival

The ‘Towards Dolly’ team are rather excited about a recent acquisition by Edinburgh University Library Special Collections: a collection of original artwork by acclaimed artist and designer Yolanda Sonnabend (1935-) created to illustrate developmental biologist Conrad Hal Waddington’s book Tools for Thought (London, 1977). The collection consists of around 250 watercolours, black inkwork drawings, tracings, collages and material sourced for collage-work. Although not officially part of the ‘Towards Dolly’ project, Sonnabend’s artwork and papers relating to her collaboration with Waddington forms a timely and fascinating complement to the Waddington papers which have been catalogued as part of the project.

As we have seen from earlier posts on this blog, Waddington (Director of the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh from 1947 until his death in 1975) held a lifelong interest in art, particularly in how it can be used to illuminate and represent scientific concepts. This interest culminated in his 1969 book Behind Appearance, a comparative study of science and painting in the twentieth century. Tools for Thought: How to understand and apply the latest scientific techniques of problem solving was Waddington’s last completed work (published posthumously) and presented approaches such as systems and catastrophe theory, cybernetics and futures research as tools for facing the world’s economic, social and ecological problems. Yolanda Sonnabend’s boldly confident illustrations are a perfect partner to Waddington’s imaginative cross-disciplinary thinking. Here is a slideshow showing a few examples from the collection:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Born in Rhodesia, Sonnabend studied painting and stage design at the Slade School of Fine Arts. As well as being an accomplished portraitist, she is probably best known for her work as a designer for theatre and ballet, having worked for the Royal Opera House, the Royal Ballet, Sadler’s Wells and the Stuttgart Ballet company. We are delighted to have this unique collection of her artwork at Edinburgh University Library Special Collections.

You can see more examples of Sonnabend’s work here on the BBC’s website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/yolanda-sonnabend

All images appear here with kind permission from Yolanda Sonnabend.