Please join us on Monday, November 19, for an STS colloquium
co-sponsored with the History of Science Department at Harvard.
From Messengers and Bodies to Signals and Cells:
Theories of Hormone Action, 1960-1975
Hannah Landecker, Rice University and Harvard University (Visiting)
4:00 p.m., MIT, E51-095*
In the 1960s, the concept of hormones as messengers that traveled
from one organ to another in the body and acted on enzymes to cause
physiological changes was gradually replaced by hormones as signals
that traveled from one cell to another, and acted via the cellular
mechanisms of receptors and gene transcription to cause a cascade of
molecular events. In particular, metabolic effects of hormones in
the liver were a site of intensive work and debate about the
mechanism of hormonal translation of environmental cues into bodily
responses. This story of the mechanism of hormone action is offered
as an example of a larger history of the organism and its milieu in
twentieth century biology: how the field of cell signaling or cell
signal transduction moved to the center of our understanding of the
mediating mechanisms between bodies and environments.
Hannah Landecker is an Assistant Professor in the Anthropology
Department at Rice University, and in 2007-2008 Visiting Assistant
Professor in the History of Science Department at Harvard. She is
the author of Culturing Life: How Cells Became Technologies,
published in 2007 by Harvard University Press.
For further information, please call 617-452-2390.
* Location of E51 on MIT campus:
http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=E51-095&mapsearch=go
Debbie Meinbresse
STS Program, MIT
617-452-2390
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