[Embryology, 'chemical geography' of the cell and synthesis between morphology and chemistry (1930-1950)].
Chemical embryology was born in 1931 with the publication of Chemical Embryology by Joseph Needham. In the following two decades it became an innovative research project aiming at the description of the construction of the embryological structure and differentiation in biochemical terms. This research programme produced a vast amount of experimental evidence and theories on the chemical dynamics of the embryo: particularly chemical characterization of the zygote and the developing embryo, the chemical exchanges between the nucleus and the cytoplasm, the significance of subcellular structures, and the role and distribution of nucleic acids within the cell. From the 1950s on, a large part of these results came to be integrated into the empirical basis of molecular biology. However, the shift from chemical embryology to molecular embryology was not just a semantic shift but a deep theoretical change, produced by the introduction of a new model of scientific explanation, based on the transmission and expression of genetic information and opposed to the biochemical definition of life.
Fantini
B
B
Institut d'histoire de la médecine et de la santé Université de Genève, CMU-Case postale, 1211 Genève, Switzerland.
D000818:Animals; D001671:Biochemistry / Q000266:history*; D004626:Embryology / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000266:history*