Printed Material Highlights from the Roslin Collection

Posted on February 24, 2014 by kdavis

With phase I of the Towards Dolly project ending for me, the Rare Books Cataloguer, I thought to look back over the material I’ve worked with and to highlight a few of my favourites from the three different mediums – offprints, rare books and glass plate slides. One of the most interesting things I found when cataloguing this material was the range of topics of interest – the geneticists collected a wide-range of subjects from specifically dealing with animal genetics to ethnography and botany that opens this material to a variety of researchers.

In the offprint series the two – out of thousands – that I’d like to feature are:

From the Roslin Institute offprints, Harry D. Griffin’s article, Update on Dolly and nuclear transfer, Roslin Institute, Edinburgh: Annual Report from 1 April 97 to 31 March 98, (GB237 Coll-1362/4/1848) which discusses the advances in nuclear transfer technology a year after Dolly, the sheep’s birth.

From the FAE Crew offprint series, William Jennings Bryan’s closing argument in the Scopes evolution case in Tennessee from 1925. (GB 237 Coll-1496/33 – General Biology 2). Bryan was the prosecuting attorney in the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ who argued against the teaching of evolution in schools with Clarence Darrow for the defence.

Two from the rare book collection:

The beautifully illustrated cover contains an interesting map, text and illustrations of the Chinese Langshan fowl in A. C. Croad’s book, The Langshan fowl: history and characteristics from 1899. (Roslin.S.10)

Another beautifully illustrated cover, is a favourite of mine from the nine volume series, The horse : its treatment in health and disease, with a complete guide to breeding training and management, 1905 (Roslin.S.50). Some of the volumes have pop-up style inserts showing the physiology of hooves and mouths layer-by-layer.

And two from the glass plate slides collection:

This is one of my absolute favourites from the Roslin glass plate slides collection simply for its oddity – ostriches and pigs in a field of pumpkins with farm houses in the background in the early 20th century. (Coll-1434/1177).

Coffee is a passion of mine and so I was thrilled to find this image of a coffee ranch in Vera Cruz, Mexico in the early 20th century. The image shows a family standing in front of their thatched hut, a man on a horse and two men carrying coffee bean baskets on their back with trees and bushes in the background. (Coll-1434/1103.

Each of these are personal favourites, as well as being a representative sample of the diversity of the collection. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

A Sample of the Roslin Institute’s Cloning Research Post-Dolly: 1998 and 2007

Posted on February 3, 2014 by kdavis

As mentioned in a previous post, Dolly, the sheep caused a media sensation in 1997 as the first cloned animal using a nuclear transfer process and so, I thought it would be interesting to highlight several articles that I came across on Dolly and cloning at the Roslin Institute in 1998 and then again in 2006. I wondered what cloning research had developed over the years since Dolly, the sheep’s birth in 1996 and surprisingly, or not, the articles I came across (that evoked Dolly) dealt with the issue of eating cloned animal meat and the ethical debate of cloning humans for medical purposes.

Note: these four articles are just a sampling of the articles produced by the Roslin geneticists on the issues, debates and research surrounding Dolly, nuclear transfer, animal and human genetics, cloning purposes (medical, agricultural, genetic conservation, etc..) to illustrate what way being discussed at the time. For more articles on these subject, please consult the Roslin Institute off-prints for 1998 and 2006 at GB237 Coll-1362/4/.

In the 1998 Roslin off-print bound volumes, I found Harry Griffiths report, ‘Update on Dolly and nuclear transfer’ in the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh: Annual Report April 1, 97-March 31 (GB 237 Coll-1362/4/1848) and Sir Ian Wilmut’s article, ‘Cloning for Medicine’ in Scientific American, December 1998 (GB 237 Coll-1362/4/1897). Griffiths report describes Dolly’s creation by the Roslin geneticists and notes that their breakthrough caused several other groups to ‘take advantage of public interest in cloning to advertise their successes …. Calves cloned from adult animals were reported from Japan and from New Zealand.’ The New Zealand clone was from ‘the last surviving animal of a rare breed’ which highlighted the use of cloning to preserve endangered species. He continues with discussing Intellectual Property issues in relation to Professor Yanagimachi and his colleagues at the University of Hawai’i ‘Honolulu Cloning Technique’ and closes with a couple of paragraphs on human cloning. He notes the UK Human Genetics Advisory Commission and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s report ‘Cloning issues in Reproduction, Science and Medicine’ from 7 December, 1998 which recommends that ‘there should be a continued ban on all ‘reproductive cloning’ – the cloning of babies – but gives cautious support to the cloning of human cells for therapeutic purposes.’

Wilmut’s article in Scientific American reports on the how biomedical researchers are developing ways to use genetically modified mammals for medical purposes. He mentions the sheep, Megan and Morag who were the first mammals cloned from cultured cells. A technique that allows cloned sheep to carry human genes and such animals produce milk that can be processed to create therapeutic human proteins. The sheep, Polly, is a transgenic clone of a Dorset sheep and ‘a gene for a human protein, factor IX, was added to the cell that provided the lamb’s genetic heritage, so Poly has the human gene.

In the 2006 Roslin off-print bound volumes, I found two fascinating articles:– Sir Ian Wilmut’s ‘Human cells from cloned embryos in research and therapy’ in BMJ Vol. 328, February 2004 and J. Sark, et al.’s ‘Dolly for dinner? Assessing commercial and regulatory trends in cloned livestock’ in Nature Biotechnology, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2007.

Sir Ian Wilmut’s article ‘Human cells from cloned embryos in research and therapy’ in BMJ Vol. 328, February 2004 is one of the more contemporary papers in the collection that discusses stem cell technology and human cloning issues. He cites studies of human genetic diseases and how cloned cells ‘will create new opportunities to study genetic disease in which the gene(s) involved has not been identified’, specifically describing work with motor-neurone diseases. Then, Wilmut notes how stem cells could be used in treatments for a variety of degenerative diseases, i.e. cardiovascular disease, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease and Type I diabetes. Finally Wilmut discusses the differences in regulation of nuclear transfer and human cloning in various countries, noting that in the United Kingdom, ‘project to derive cells from cloned embryos may be approved by the regulatory authority for the study of serious diseases. By contrast human reproductive cloning would be illegal.’

Then, in 2007, the article by and J. Sark, et al’s ‘Dolly for dinner? Assessing commercial and regulatory trends in cloned livestock’ in Nature Biotechnology, ‘reviews the state of the art in cloning technologies; emerging food-related commercial products; the current state of regulatory and trading frameworks, particularly in the EU and the United states and the potential for public controversy.’

As you can see by these four examples there are a range of issues and concerns that have been discussed over the years. While advances are made in cloning and genetic modification, there are still ethical debates to be had and more research to be done. In reading over these and other similar articles in the Roslin off-prints, I enjoyed learning about the different uses of transgenic animals.

Hermann J Muller (1890-1967), American Geneticist: Radiation and Mutation Studies in the USA, USSR and Edinburgh

Posted on January 20, 2014 by kdavis

Continuing with the Soviet –Edinburgh genetics link, this week’s post focuses on the American geneticist and Nobel laureate, Hermann Joseph Muller (1890-1967) known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of radiation. Born in New York City, he attended Columbia College for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees focussing on biology and the Drosophila genetics work of Thomas Hunt Morgan’s fly lab and was an early convert of the Mendelian-chromosome theory of heredity — and the concept of genetic mutations and natural selection as the basis for evolution. He formed a Biology Club and also became a proponent of eugenics; the connections between biology and society would be his perennial concern. Muller’s career first took him to the William Marsh Rice Institute, now Rice University in Houston in 1915, then back to Columbia College in 1918 where he continued teaching and expanding on his work on mutation rate and lethal mutations. In 1919, Muller made the important discovery of a mutant (later found to be a chromosomal inversion) that appeared to suppress crossing-over, which opened up new avenues in mutation rate studies. He was additionally interested in eugenics and investigated After Columbia, he went to the University of Texas and began to investigate radium and x-rays and the relationship between radiation and mutation. After a period of time Muller became disillusioned with the political situation in the United States and life in Texas and so, in 1932 he moved to Berlin, Germany to work with Nikolai Timofeev-Ressovsky, a Russian geneticist. Initially, his move was to be a limited sabbatical that turned into an eight-year five country stay. Later in 1932 Muller moved to the Soviet Union after being investigated by the FBI due to his involvement with the leftist (Communist) newspaper, The Spark, that he contributed to when in Texas. In Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) then Moscow, Muller worked at the Institute of Genetics where he imported the basic laboratory equipment and flies for a Drosophila lab. At the Institute, Muller organized work on medical genetics and explored the relationship between genetics and radiation in more detail and completed his eugenics book, Out of the Night in which the main ideas dated to 1910. By 1936 Stalin and Lysenko were making it difficult for scientists and geneticists to work in the USSR (see previous post on the Lysenko Controversy) and Muller was forced to leave after Stalin read a translation of his eugenics book.

Muller moved to Edinburgh in September 1937 with c250 strains of Drosophila and began working for the University of Edinburgh. In 1939 the Seventh International Congress on Genetics was held in Edinburgh and Muller wrote a ‘Geneticists’ Manifesto’ in response to the question, “How could the world’s population be improved most effectively genetically?”

In 1940, he moved back to the United States to work with Otto Glaser at Amherst College and consulted on the Manhattan Project as well as a study of the mutational effects of radar. In 1945, owing to difficulties stemming from his Socialist leanings, he moved to Bloomington, Indiana to work in the Zoology Department at Indiana University. In 1946, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for the discovery that mutations can be induced by x-rays”.

In 1955 Muller was one of eleven prominent intellectuals to sign the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, the upshot of which was the first Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs in 1957, which addressed the control of nuclear weapons. He was a signatory (with many other scientists) of the 1958 petition to the United Nations, calling for an end to nuclear weapons testing, which was initiated by the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling.^[3]

3 – John Bellamy Foster (2009). The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet, Monthly Review Press, New York, pp. 71-72.

Dollymania – Seven Days that Shook the World

Posted on December 16, 2013 by kdavis

1997 was quite a significant year for the Roslin Institute with “’Dolly, the sheep, ‘…the first mammal cloned from a cell from an adult animal…generated an amazing amount of interest from the world’s media.” (Griffin, Harry. ‘Dollymania’, University of Edinburgh Journal, XXXVIII: 2, December 1997, GB237 Coll-1362/4/1476). And so, it’s been exciting to find articles in the offprints discussing her and the issues of cloning, biotechnology, ethics – Dr. Grahame Bulfield even wrote a report to Parliament on what this breakthrough means for science!

Harry Griffin, former Assistant Director (Science) at the Roslin Institute in 1997’s article, ‘Dollymania’ (cited above) provides an insider’s point of view of how Dolly was produced and the science and research involved. He writes,

Dolly was produced from cells that had been taken from the udder of a 6-year old Finn Dorset ewe and cultured for several weeks in the laboratory. Individual cells were then fused with unfertilised eggs from which the genetic material had been removed and 29 of these ‘reconstructed’ eggs – each now with a diploid nucleus from the adult animal – were implanted in surrogate Blackface ewes. One gave rise to a live lamb, Dolly, some 148 days later. Other cloned lambs were derived in the same way by nuclear transfer from cells taken from embryonic and foetal tissue.

…

On Monday, Dolly provided the lead story in most of the papers and Roslin Institute was besieged by reporters and TV crews from all over the world…. Dolly rapidly became the most photographed sheep of all time and was invited to appear on a chat show in the US. Astrologers asked for her date of birth and PPL’s share price rose sharply. President Bill Clinton called on his bioethics’ commission to report on the ethical implications within 90 days and Ian Wilmut was invited to testify to both the UK House of Commons and the US Congress…. Dolly Parton sad she was ‘honoured’ that we have named our progeny after her and that there is no such thing as ‘baaaaaed publicity’. Sadly, we also received a handful of requests to resurrect relatives and loved pets.

In the article, ‘Seven days that shook the world’ by Harry Griffin and Ian Wilmut in New Scientist, 22 March 1997 also describe the reality of the science of cloning in the face of intense media speculation and reportage.

Dr. Grahame Bulfield, former Director of the Roslin Institute, wrote several articles in 1997 on biotechnology, ethics, livestock and cloning. In some articles, he writes generally on the techniques of genetic engineering, genome analysis, and embryo manipulations and provides a biological context of these new technologies. (GB237 Coll-1362/4/1394 – 1400). He discusses Dolly more directly in the article, ‘Dit is pas het begin’ in the Dutch journal Natuur & Techniek, No. 8, 1997 (4/1376) and The Roslin Institute and Cloning an address to the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee in Science in Parliament, Vol. 54, No. 5, September/October 1997 (4/1400). In this particular article he writes specifically about Dolly:

As you know we have been thrown into the middle of public debate recently with a considerable amount of public interest and concern about “Dolly”. Over a period of about five days we had 3,000 telephone calls, 17 TV crews and we basically ground to a halt. We are perfectly aware now of the issues that are raised , and I don’t believe that a scientific organisation like ours can do anything buy try and be proactive in terms of communicating new biotechnology advances to the public and Government and ensuring the issues involved are widely debated.

FAE Crew’s Off-Prints (1814-1940)

Posted on December 2, 2013 by kdavis

In addition to the off-prints of the various past organizations that made up the Roslin Institute, we have FAE Crew’s collection. The majority of the off-prints in his collection, found in 39 bound volumes, were written by other authors such as Conrad Hal Waddington, Leonard Darwin, and Alan Greenwood among others and some of the articles were even previously owned by Arthur Darbishire. The non-Crew authored material dates between 1814 and 1936 and Crew’s articles date between the years of 1930 to 1940 and he organized the bound off-prints into series: Fowl (18 volumes- GB 237 Coll-1496/1-18); Birds (2 volumes – GB 237 Coll-1496/19-20); Pigeons (2 volumes -GB 237 Coll-1496/21-22); Genetics General (9 volumes – GB 237 Coll-1496/23-31); and General Biology (8 volumes – GB 237 Coll-1496/32-39). There is a wealth of fascinating articles found in this collection – especially in the Genetics General and General Biology volumes which show Crew’s wide-ranging interests including animal genetics, human genetics, eugenics, evolution (both scientific and philosophical), teaching medical students and ethics. A few particular highlights are Major Leonard Darwin’s article Organic Evolution: Outstanding Difficulties and Possible Explanation, Cambridge University Press, 1921; Darwin

Condemned for Teaching Lies: the following is a speech prepared by William Jennings Bryan for delivery in closing argument for the State in the Evolution Case at Dayton, Tennessee, July 21, 1925;

and H. Muller’s Lenin’s Doctrines in Relation to Genetics, Academy of Sciences, USSR, 1934.

In addition to the articles collected by Crew for his research, there is a box of un-bound off-prints authored by Crew himself (GB 237 Coll-1496/40/1-70). These articles span the years between 1930 and 1940 and discuss such topics as: animal breeding, sterilisation, eugenics, heredity versus environment and other genetic based topics. The last article in the collection is quite interesting since it’s Crew’s thoughts on war when he was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, The war and ourselves in the Journal of the British Army Medical Corps, 1940 (GB 237 Coll-1496/40/74).

This material, the collected offprints of other scientists, offers a fascinating insight into the research interests of FAE Crew by showing his diverse interests which helped to inform his work as seen in the same collection in his self-authored papers.

Wallace on War: WWI Images in the Roslin Glass Slides Collection

Posted on November 18, 2013 by kdavis

In a previous post, I wrote about Professor Robert Wallace, (1853 – 1939), who taught Scientific Agriculture and Rural Economy at the University of Edinburgh and how many of the glass slides in the Roslin Collection seem to belong to him. While many of these images focused on his teaching interests, there were quite a few on World War I concerns. Professor Wallace was passionately concerned about the treatment of war prisoners and hostages in Germany and Belgium during the war and wrote to the President of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson between 1914 and 1917 with his concerns and urging him to send American troops to Europe to fight. These letters can beound in the Centre for Research Collections, Main Library, University of Edinburgh (Reference number: GB 237 GB 237 Coll-87 / Location Gen. 554-555; Gen. 867F).

Here are a selection of images from the Roslin Glass Slides Collection featuring – animals during and after WWI and political cartoons:

ASCUS talk: Genetics in the Archives: Inspiring New Art

Posted on November 4, 2013 by kdavis

Another way we promote the project is by giving talks and last Wednesday we had the exciting opportunity to collaborate with both ASCUS: the Art and Science Collaborative and Dr. Mhairi Towler and Paul Harrison of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Our part of the talk was to introduce the collection to a wider audience and to show the wealth of material on offer to researchers; then, the artists, Dr. Mhairi Towler and Dr. Paul Harrison spoke about their current project sand how they used some of the material from the Conrad Hal Waddington Collection in their work.

Our talk: ‘Towards Dolly: Edinburgh, Roslin and the Birth of Modern Genetics’ is based within Edinburgh University Library’s Centre for Research Collections and is generously funded by the Wellcome Trust’s Research Resources in Medical History grants scheme. The project archivist, Clare Button, and rare books cataloguer, Kristy Davis are cataloguing the archival records of the Roslin Institute, the Institute of Animal Genetics, the papers of James Cossar Ewart and Conrad Hal Waddington, glass plate slides, rare books and scientific offprints.

And Dr. Mhairi Towler and Dr. Paul Harrison of Duncan Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee spoke on their artwork based upon the C.H. Waddington collection who presented aspects of their work in progress: ‘Epigenetic Landscapes’. This research they said ‘explores and celebrates the ideas of developmental biologist, philosopher and visual thinker, C.H. Waddington.’ http://www.designsforlifeproject.co.uk/ Afterwards there was a brief question and answer session before people left or moved on to discuss it further.

We would like to thank Dr. Mhairi Towler and Dr. Paul Harrison for speaking; ASCUS for collaborating with us to make this event possible; the Art and Science Library at Summerhall for letting us use their space and all those who braved the weather and attended the event.

Avian Genome Mapping Advances at the Roslin Institute in 1995

Posted on October 21, 2013 by kdavis

In 1995 David W. Burt the Chair of Comparative Genomics at the Roslin Institute, Midlothian, Scotland, wrote several articles on the successes of mapping the avian genome through the project the International Poultry Genome Mapping Project and the creation of the public database, ChickGBASE (http://archive.is/DCn2c) that was established at the Roslin Institute to ‘provide access to a summary of chicken gene mapping data.’

In the article, ‘Chicken genome mapping: a new era in avian genetics’ by Burt, Bumstead, Bitgood, Ponce de Leon and Crittenden, Trends in Genetics (May 1995, Vol. 11, No. 5), they note that the ‘first linkage map of the chicken, which was also the first linkage map reported for any domestic farm animal species, was published in 1936 by Hutt’ and there were updates by other scientists over the years.

There are multiple articles by Burt and others on the progress made with avian gene mapping in the Roslin Institute’s 1995 offprint series and what’s fascinating to see is how the advances in biotechnology has aided their efforts.

According to Burt’s report in the Roslin Institute’s Annual Report 1994-1995, the next challenge that they faced was to ‘locate and identify the defective gene in this (talpid3) mutant’ and that ‘a “positional cloning” approach could be used in which the talpid genetic locus itself is cloned and genes within that DNA are tested.’

From gene to trait: opening the black box

Posted on October 7, 2013 by kdavis

As I’ve been cataloguing the Rosin Institute’s offprints, I came across a very interesting item by Dr. Grahame Bulfield, the former director and chief executive of the Roslin Institute and vice-principal, University of Edinburgh and who is also consulting with and providing us with his considerable knowledge and insight of genetics in Edinburgh on the Towards Dolly project. This brief abstract of the paper, ‘From gene to trait: opening the black box’ found in the Journal of Endocrinology, Volume 140, Supplement, Abstract S18, 1994 (GB 237 Coll-1362/4/329):

Or here: http://joe.endocrinology-journals.org/content/140/3_Suppl/S18.full.pdf

As you can see, he mentions that while there was little success in 1994 of manipulating ‘commercially important traits’ of various animals there was the increasing potential for success by using the research gathered from the Human Genome Mapping Project to establish similar projects for various animals. There are many other papers in the Roslin Institute offprints that discuss various aspects of research on transgenic animals that I’ve catalogued and you’ll be able to search for them once the online catalogue is available in the near future.

The Roslin Institute’s Scientific Papers, 1993-2007

Posted on September 23, 2013 by kdavis

Now that the Poultry Research Centre offprints are catalogued, I’ve finally started on the Roslin Institute’s papers. According to the history of the Institute on its website the,

Roslin Institute was established in 1993 as a wholly owned but independent institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Research Council. Its antecedents, however, go back to 1919 and are closely linked to animal genetics research at the University of Edinburgh.

Roslin Institute traces its origins to the establishment in 1919 of the Institute of Animal Genetics (IAG) by the University of Edinburgh. In 1947, the Agricultural Research Council (later the Agriculture and Food Research Council – AFRC) created a series of publicly funded research organisations to help UK farmers produce more food. In Edinburgh the expertise within the IAG was used to create two new organisations, the Poultry Research Centre (PRC) and the Animal Breeding Research Organisation (ABRO). Within the University of Edinburgh a residual presence was maintained in the form of the Unit of Animal Genetics (UAG).

In 1985, a fundamental review of over 30 AFRC Institutes and Units led to the closure of the UAG and PRC and ABRO were combined with the Institute of Animal Physiology based at Babraham to form the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research (IAPGR). ABRO staff were progressively relocated onto the PRC site at Roslin to form the Edinburgh Research Station of IAPGR.

In 1992, the AFRC decided that Roslin and Babraham should be developed into independent Institutes, each with its own clearly defined mission. On 1 April 1993, Roslin Institute (named after the local village) was established as an independent, but wholly owned, Institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). In 1995 Roslin Institute became a company limited by guarantee and a Scottish Charity sponsored by BBSRC. In April 2007, Roslin Institute was integrated with the Neuropathogenesis Unit formerly of the Institute for Animal Health, and in April 2008 the combined organisation became a part of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies (RDSVS) of the University of Edinburgh.

The scientific papers that I’m working on date between 1993 and 2007, so I’m looking forward to finding some about the creation of Dolly, the sheep and more about the other research conducted there over the years. So far I’ve catalouged quite a few on gene mapping and transgenic animals!

Towards Dolly

Edinburgh, Roslin and the Birth of Modern Genetics

Author Archives: kdavis