New Strides, Old Stripes: Zebras and the tsetse fly

Posted on May 5, 2014 by towardsdolly

Glass slide, which probably once belonged to James Cossar Ewart, showing the tsetse fly (Coll-1434/3139)

It was announced last week that scientists have deciphered the genetic code of the tsetse fly, which offers hope of eradicating one of Africa’s most deadly diseases. The fly, which is only found in Africa, carries parasitic micro-organisms which cause sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis) in humans by attacking their circadian rhythms (biological clock) and can be fatal if left untreated. As well as the threat to people, the tsetse can have equally devastating effects on animals, particularly livestock, causing infertility, weight loss and decrease in milk production. By also rendering animals too weak to plough, the consequences for farmers can be catastrophic. Since the parasite can evade mammals’ immune systems, vaccines are useless, and control of the tsetse is currently only achievable through radiation, pesticides or trapping.

James Cossar Ewart with one of his zebras in Penicuik, outside Edinburgh, c.1900 (GB 237 Coll-14/4/6)

James Cossar Ewart with one of his zebras in Penicuik, outside Edinburgh, c.1900 (Coll-14/4/6)

Concerns about the tsetse fly in Africa date from far before such advances in genetics could hope to help. There are several letters in James Cossar Ewart’s archives which give an insight into how the problem was being dealt with over a century ago. As you may remember from other posts, Ewart, Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh from 1882 to 1927, famously conducted cross-breeding experiments with zebras and horses on his home farm in Penicuik. It is perhaps not too surprising then, that zebras featured in Ewart’s thoughts about the tsetse fly…

Ewart’s letters show that between 1903 and 1909 he was corresponding with various individuals involved in the administration of East Africa (which was then a protectorate of the British Empire), where the tsetse fly was a great problem, particularly where animals such as horses – which were invaluable for transport – were being infected. Ewart believed his zebras could be the solution, if it could be shown that they were immune to the disease the fly carried. (Ewart had already been researching the potential of zebras and zebra hybrids as alternative pack and transportation animals in military, mining and agricultural contexts around the world). However, in June 1903, a letter from Ewart’s regular correspondent, the German animal dealer and trainer Carl Hagenbeck, regretfully informed Ewart that three zebras had died in Berlin after being infected. However, hope was not lost; a month later, Alice Balfour (sister of the 1st Earl of Balfour) wrote to Ewart wondering whether cross-breeding infected zebras with healthy horses might lead to an immune hybrid strain being created. As a matter of fact, zebras are indeed immune to the bite of the tsetse, with some theories holding that zebras have evolved stripes to confuse the flies and deter attack. In 1909, the author, soldier and hunter Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson wrote to Ewart stating that it was a shame zebras were not easily domesticated, as East Africa sorely needed animal transport immune from ‘the fly’.

Glass slide, which probably once belonged to James Cossar Ewart, showing the distribution of the tsetse fly across Africa (GB 237 Coll-1434/2058)

Glass slide, which probably once belonged to James Cossar Ewart, showing the distribution of the tsetse fly across Africa (Coll-1434/2058)

We don’t know from Ewart’s correspondence whether zebras did end up being used in East Africa, although they have remained useful to the present day – in 2010, for instance, it was announced that cattle in East Africa were being scented with zebra odour in order to deter the tsetse!

These letters offer an insight into ways of tackling the tsetse problem through species selection and cross-breeding before scientific advancement enabled the full sequencing of the tsetse genome.

See the catalogue of James Cossar Ewart’s paper here:
http://www.archives.lib.ed.ac.uk/towardsdolly/cs/viewcat.pl?id=GB-237-Coll-14&view=basic

Clare Button
Project Archivist

Picture Perfect!

Posted on March 24, 2014 by towardsdolly

Being 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.

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!

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…

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?

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

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!

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: