Asilomar Goes Underground: The Long Legacy of Recombinant DNA Hazard Debates for the Greater Boston Area Biotechnology Industry
Name
10739_2025_Article_9806.pdf
Size
795.78 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
8ffdeb98d27008346fe9f881bbca2e4e
Author(s)
Scheffler, Robin W.
Date Issued
March 7, 2025
Journal
Journal of the History of Biology
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Citation
Scheffler, R.W. Asilomar Goes Underground: The Long Legacy of Recombinant DNA Hazard Debates for the Greater Boston Area Biotechnology Industry. J Hist Biol 58, 67–93 (2025).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
In 1975, a meeting on the potential hazards of recently invented recombinant DNA techniques was held at the Asilomar Conference Center in California. This meeting gave rise to a global debate over the safety and regulation of recombinant DNA (rDNA). In this paper, I use the historical development of recombinant DNA regulation in the Greater Boston Area—now home to the densest cluster of the biotechnology industry in the world—to provide a different interpretation of the legacies of Asilomar. While most accounts of Asilomar have considered its brief and dramatic impact on molecular biology on a national scale, an equally meaningful and overlooked impact is to be found in the development of regulations around recombinant DNA at the local level. Rather than hindering research, these events enabled the operations of the modern commercial biotechnology industry, which was founded on the promise of recombinant DNA. This approach highlights a different legacy of Asilomar, one which did not end with expert consensus that recombinant DNA was safe. Instead, attending to the material, infrastructural aspects of working with recombinant DNA in commercial settings reveals a wide range of communities involved in determining the social impacts of Asilomar—communities asking a broader set of questions about recombinant DNA than those originally posed in 1975.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-025-09806-x
