Angela N. H. Creager
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226017808
- eISBN:
- 9780226017945
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226017945.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter focuses on developments in E. O. Lawrence’s Radiation Laboratory to illustrate the cyclotron-based system of radioisotope production. By 1940, biomedical uses of radioisotopes involved ...
More
This chapter focuses on developments in E. O. Lawrence’s Radiation Laboratory to illustrate the cyclotron-based system of radioisotope production. By 1940, biomedical uses of radioisotopes involved collaboration between physical scientists as providers and life scientists and physicians as users, a “moral economy” of gift exchange and shared credit. In Berkeley, biological research with sodium-24, phosphorus-32, and iodine-131 as tracers was connected to therapeutic experiments using these radioisotopes. The militarization of work in Lawrence’s Berkeley laboratory in the early 1940s constrained the availability of radioisotopes to physicians and scientists outside the Radiation Laboratory. In addition, new military priorities shaped the ongoing human experiments conducted by Lawrence’s colleagues (such as John Lawrence and Joseph Hamilton), as they began investigating the toxicity and metabolism of fission products for the Manhattan Project.Less
This chapter focuses on developments in E. O. Lawrence’s Radiation Laboratory to illustrate the cyclotron-based system of radioisotope production. By 1940, biomedical uses of radioisotopes involved collaboration between physical scientists as providers and life scientists and physicians as users, a “moral economy” of gift exchange and shared credit. In Berkeley, biological research with sodium-24, phosphorus-32, and iodine-131 as tracers was connected to therapeutic experiments using these radioisotopes. The militarization of work in Lawrence’s Berkeley laboratory in the early 1940s constrained the availability of radioisotopes to physicians and scientists outside the Radiation Laboratory. In addition, new military priorities shaped the ongoing human experiments conducted by Lawrence’s colleagues (such as John Lawrence and Joseph Hamilton), as they began investigating the toxicity and metabolism of fission products for the Manhattan Project.
Angela N. H. Creager
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780262027953
- eISBN:
- 9780262326100
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262027953.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The U.S. government developed atomic energy for peacetime after World War II in the form of radioactive isotopes, produced in a former Manhattan Project reactor and distributed to civilian ...
More
The U.S. government developed atomic energy for peacetime after World War II in the form of radioactive isotopes, produced in a former Manhattan Project reactor and distributed to civilian purchasers. These radioisotopes provided physicians with new tools of diagnosis and therapy and equipped biologists to trace molecular transformations from metabolic pathways to ecosystems. This chapter juxtaposes postwar developments in biochemistry, nuclear medicine, and ecology growing out of this new supply of radioisotopes. In each of these areas, one can see how government policy and infrastructure integral to the Cold War decisively shaped scientific opportunities and knowledge. Routine practices of radiolabeling and radiotracing remained in place long after the positive political valence of radioisotopes dimmed in the 1960s and 1970s, in the wake of the debates over radioactive contamination of the environment from atomic weapons tests and nuclear waste.Less
The U.S. government developed atomic energy for peacetime after World War II in the form of radioactive isotopes, produced in a former Manhattan Project reactor and distributed to civilian purchasers. These radioisotopes provided physicians with new tools of diagnosis and therapy and equipped biologists to trace molecular transformations from metabolic pathways to ecosystems. This chapter juxtaposes postwar developments in biochemistry, nuclear medicine, and ecology growing out of this new supply of radioisotopes. In each of these areas, one can see how government policy and infrastructure integral to the Cold War decisively shaped scientific opportunities and knowledge. Routine practices of radiolabeling and radiotracing remained in place long after the positive political valence of radioisotopes dimmed in the 1960s and 1970s, in the wake of the debates over radioactive contamination of the environment from atomic weapons tests and nuclear waste.
