Materials and objects. A history of rhodopsin research in between the life sciences, chemistry and technologies (c. 1880 - 1992)

• Applicant: Dr. Mathias Grote
• Subject Area: History of Science
• Term: from 2011 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 191680489

This project analyses the history of rhodopsin research. Rhodopsins are photo-active proteins that have been found both in microbes and animals retinae. The researches covered range from c. 1880 to 1992 and straddle microbiology, membrane and structural research, the biochemistry of vision as well as biotechnologies. The study aims to scrutinize the historical genesis of an object of science at the crossroads of scientific as well as technological practices and concepts. The decade from 1970 to 1980 will be the focus of attention. Then, so-called bacteriorhodopsin was constituted as an object of science by a small community of researchers, before it rapidly advanced to a model for explaining a physiological process through macromolecular dynamics. This role is also reflected in metaphorical designations of bacteriorhodopsin as a molecular pump or machine. Historical studies of this pivotal decade are accompanied by analyses of micro- and membrane biology as well as the biochemistry of vision from c. 1880 to 1970, that shaped the material and conceptual resources to be connected in the following years. Finally, the transformation of bacteriorhodopsin into an increasingly technical object will be studied (c. 1980 to 1992). As these fields of research, and especially the rise of membrane biology after the heyday of molecular genetics, have hardly found historical attention, this study significantly broaden the scope of the history of the life sciences. Also, the present case exemplifies material and conceptual links of the life sciences to chemistry as the science of material substances and their transformations. The bacteriorhodopsin-containing membrane was conceived of both as a functional part of the cell and as a producible material substance. Thus, the membranes biological activity was recast as physico-chemical reactivity of a macromolecule. In connection with the role of bacteriorhodopsin as a tool and increasingly technical object, these developments allow to document changes in the scientific understanding of the living in the more recent past. So, a historical case study is linked to epistemological analyses.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants