In 1919 the Animal Breeding Research Department was established in Edinburgh. This Department, later renamed the Institute of Animal Genetics, forged an international reputation, eventually becoming the centrepiece of a cluster of new genetics research units and institutions in Edinburgh after the Second World War. Yet despite its significance for institutionalising animal genetics research in the UK, the origins and development of the Department have not received as much scholarly attention as its importance warrants. This paper sheds new light on (...) Edinburgh’s place in early British genetics by drawing upon recently catalogued archival sources including the papers of James Cossar Ewart, Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh between 1882 and 1927. Although presently a marginal figure in genetics historiography, Ewart established two sites for experimental animal breeding work between 1895 and 1911 and played a central role in the founding of Britain’s first genetics lectureship, also in 1911. These early efforts helped to secure government funding in 1913. However, a combination of the First World War, bureaucratic problems and Ewart’s personal ambitions delayed the creation of the Department and the appointment of its director by another six years. This paper charts the institutionalisation of animal breeding and genetics research in Edinburgh within the wider contexts of British genetics and agriculture in the early twentieth century. (shrink)

Gene editing tools are ‘revolutionizing’ microbiological research. Much of the public debate focuses on the possibility of human germ line applications. The use of genome editing to alter non-human animals, however, will have more immediate impacts on our daily lives. Genome edited animals are used for basic biological and biomedical research and could soon play a role in the livestock industry and ecosystem management. Genome editing thus provides an occasion to rethink societal narratives about the relationships between humans and other (...) animals. Even though the technique can be easily incorporated as an example into a conventional storyline about the development of the modern life sciences as striving for control over nature, it can also help to highlight the anthropocentric biases expressed in these narratives and demonstrate the continuities between humans and other animals. (shrink)