Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease

The research presented in this thesis endeavours to further understanding of the cytoskeletal protein keratin 15 (K15), and the role this protein has on maintaining the stem cell niche. This study has focused on studying the role of K15 by using small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) to knock-down K15 in different cell lines (HaCaT cells, MET 1, 2 and 4 cells and normal human epidermal keratinocytes). To observe the effect of K15 on stem cells, adhesion, migration, differentiation and proliferation were assessed following K15 knock-down by siRNA.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the attitude of Joseph Needham towards the emerging discipline of biochemistry in the first half of the twentieth century. This is of particular interest as part of the change from histological study to molecular biology in embryonic research.

This essay will consider the use and influence of light microscopy (and its variants) in biological cell culture.  Improvements in technology generated several instruments for use by scholars in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and the microscope is one example.  Beginning with the development of the microscope and tracing its prominence through the first observations in the seventeenth century, the lack of technical development in the eighteenth century, a revival in the nineteenth century, this essay will consider how the microscope became a ‘black box’ in twentieth century cell biology.  To do this, the use of the light microscope and its variants will be considered in relation to cell biology and cell culture; a field of research and a technique that became increasingly important in the twentieth century, requiring light microscopy.  Despite the apparent rise in understanding of cell culture techniques and the loss of light microscopy understanding and techniques, I suggest that both microscopy and cell culture have become standardised methods in modern biological science, with generally little in-depth understanding of either in the youngest generations of twenty-first century biologists.

In January 2014, a letter and original research article were published in Nature describing a process whereby somatic mouse cells could be converted into stem cells by subjecting them to stress. These “stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency” (STAP) cells were shown to be capable of contributing to all cell types of a developing embryo, and extra-embryonic tissues. The lead author of the publications, Haruko Obokata, became an overnight celebrity in Japan, where she was dubbed the new face of Japanese science. However, in the weeks that followed publication of the research, issues arose. Other laboratories and researchers (including authors on the original papers) found that they were unable to replicate Obokata et al.’s work. Closer scrutiny of the papers by the scientific community also suggested that there was manipulation of images that had been published, and Obokata was accused of misconduct. Those who should have been supervising her work (also her co-authors on the publications) were also heavily criticised. The STAP cell saga of 2014 is used as an example to highlight the importance of trust and replication in twenty-first century biological science. The role of trust in the scientific community is highlighted, and the effects on interactions between science and the public examined. Similarly, this essay aims to highlight the importance of replication, and how this is understood by researchers, the media, and the public. The expected behaviour of scientists in the twenty-first century is now more closely scrutinised.