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Integration in Europe of human genetics results obtained by Spaniards in the USA: A historical perspective

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Abstract

The mobility of Spanish biochemists from Europe to the United States over the past 80 years (1927–2006) is approached from a historical perspective. The academic community on human genetics has awarded this emigrated Spanish community with the Nobel prize as well as other awards from European foundations. The vertical/horizontal integration methodology offers an opportunity to understand the extremely satisfactory history of a small European community overseas. To piece the puzzle together, continuous reference is made to the theory of systems. To test and use this holistic history, the circulation of the knowledge produced on cancer has been studied as intrinsically related to time by using the algorithmic historiography.

Francisco Duran Reynals and Severo Ochoa have been selected as examples of the vertical integration. The former one because he was the director of an important collaborator, his own wife; the latter, as the founder of a Spanish specific research school in America based in his own work. The simultaneous stay of several young Spanish scientists at the Columbia University (Mariano Barbacid, Manuel Perucho and Ángel Pellicer) serves to design the horizontal integration, to create a holon hierarchy to reflect the criteria of subsidiarity and acceptability, and to focus on the Spanish discoveries and contributions to cancer research.

The transatlantic flows of knowledge generated by the Spanish elite of biochemists in the USA from 1927 on define a network of geographical displacements. As a result, the social structure thus visualizes the identity of the international mobility of scientists who leave for Europe/USA, and their return to Spain. A model of the brain drain of professionals to the USA, that retain 80% of the Spanish cancer researchers, is developed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Emilia Currás

  2. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Cádiz, Spain

    Enrique Wulff Barreiro

Authors
  1. Emilia Currás
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  2. Enrique Wulff Barreiro
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Correspondence to Enrique Wulff Barreiro.

Additional information

A version of theis paper was a contribution to: 2nd International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science (Cracow, Sept. 2006).

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Currás, E., Barreiro, E.W. Integration in Europe of human genetics results obtained by Spaniards in the USA: A historical perspective. Scientometrics 75, 473–493 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1861-2

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