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SUMMARY:Bypassing the brave new world: reporting transgenic mice in the ea
 rly 1980s - Dmitriy Myelnikov (Department of History and Philosophy of Sci
 ence)
DTSTART:20150430T120000Z
DTEND:20150430T130000Z
UID:TALK58953@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Staley
DESCRIPTION:The first transgenic animals – mice modified with foreign DN
 A at the one-cell embryo stage – were born in the USA in 1980\, amid int
 ense debates about genetic engineering and the fledging biotech industry. 
 From the beginning\, these mice led an active public life. On the same day
  their birth was announced at a conference\, the readers of the _New York 
 Times_ could learn about the experiment from the front page. Genetic modif
 ication of mammals was something most biologists had presented as a distan
 t possibility\, but despite the general climate of distrust towards geneti
 c engineering seen in US opinion polls\, the new mice were not reported as
  threatening. Rather\, most commentators hailed these animals as a biomedi
 cal breakthrough. News from other labs soon followed\, as did journal publ
 ications\, opinion pieces and cover photos. In the process\, the identity 
 of transgenic mice as a working experimental tool with great potential ben
 efits was established. How did this tangle of communication\, increasingly
  the default for high-stakes innovation in the 1980s\, make transgenic mic
 e a success? How did scientists and universities handle broad audiences\, 
 and did they benefit from active communication? And what contemporaneous t
 rends in science journalism allowed these mice to become a largely unprobl
 ematic breakthrough?
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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