Customer Reviews

Making PCR: A Story of Biotechnology

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Rabinow apparently spent years observing and talking with the major players in the "discovery" or development of PCR. I disagree with the "reader from England," who apparently wants to believe that science happens in a pure vacuum. Rabinow shows how science is the product of human interactions--collaborations and antagonisms both--and how and why a lot of major research has moved from university laboratories into industrial parks. He works interviews with the scientists involved into the story, and it is a GOOD STORY that he tells. And everyone who has read Kary MUllis' autobiography should read MAKING PCR for alternative views!

"Making PCR" starts slowly; the opening is more for academic anthropologists than for readers interested in biotechnology, so wade through it. The story of PCR is intertwined with the story of Cetus Corporation, which is developed more fully in "Biotechnology Backstage" by former Cetus scientist Paul Aebersold and available from Kabel Publishers. "Making PCR" constrains itself to such an academic view that it leaves out the most amazing part of the story, a fight started by Kary Mullis at a Cetus scientific retreat that got him demoted to the bench to concentrate his efforts on PCR!

Paul Rabinow, professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, has scrutinized the invention and development of a major biotechnological tool that underlies most present-day gene detection and manipulation. This book tells the story of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on the basis of personal interviews with most of the major players as well as extensive reading of the scientific and autobiographical literature. It is really several books in one: a somewhat cerebral analysis of the ultimate meaning of science in human affairs, a historical account of the emergence of PCR, a description of the issues surrounding the rise of the biotechnology industry, and a trenchant account of the roles individual psychology and personal character play in research, especially in the industrial context. Different readers may wish to concentrate on some of these elements and gloss over the others. It's a rich tapestry of a book and I plan to return to it from time to time as one or another of its themes addresses my current interests. This book belongs on the required reading list of anyone either in or contemplating a career in biotechnology. Ditto for historians of post-WWII science.

Very entertaining biographical account of the discovery of PCR, individuals, corporations, money and financial risk in biotech. Highlights the solitary, individual act of scientific discovery and how this can be decoupled from corresponding financial reward (science is not business, business is not science).

Paul Rabinow is an anthropologist who studies molecular biologists. He tells the story of the development of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technique that revolutionized molecular biology. Rabinow succeeds in writing a book about science that is entertaining and informative to scientists and non-scientists alike. This book provides a first-hand examples of an unexpected revolution resulting from an unassuming research project, and the long road from concept to product. See also "French DNA" by Paul Rabinow and "The Golden Helix" by Arthur Kornberg.

"Making PCR" is a valuable book for the simple reason that there is no other resource attempting to provide a detailed account of the development of the polymerase chain reaction, the key molecular biological technique of our age. Though short the book is difficult to read for stylistic reasons and fails to answer some of the principal questions it poses. At times, it reads like a rough draft, offering poorly digested clumps of primary sources without any particular rhyme or reason. Most of the questions that drove me to read the book (e.g. did Mullis really take the idea for PCR uncredited from Knappe, was TAQ polymerase not really the idea of Mullis, and if so, then whose idea was it? etc.) remained unaswered at the end of Rabinow's book. Still, "Making PCR" gives a fascinating vignette of how science really works.

The story begins with the founding of Cetus, the biotechnological corporation in which PCR was developed, giving a short synopsis of its early exploits, particularly the research on IL2. The author hems and haws quite a bit about IL2, even though the subject has only passing relevance to the PCR story. There is a rather long interview with one of Cetus's executives, inserted en block, unedited into the narrative. The interviewee, Gelfand, dilates about his days fighting for civil rights in Mississippi, which is revealing from a totally different perspective, but again has virtually zero relevance to PCR. There are several other raw interviews simply inserted en block into the text without any firm motivation.

After much delayed gratification, the narrative finally winds to Mullis and PCR. I guess Rabinow paints Mullis as a brilliant, but flaky idea man, who never would have succeeded in "making PCR" without his dedicated co-workers. The author suggests that others should have shared the Nobel Prize for PCR with Mullis, but never suggests which or why.

To summarize, "Making PCR" is probably only of interest to professional molecular biologists. There are very few revelations, and most of these can be gleaned off of the internet.

I found the ethnographic approach to be a good way for those of us without a hard science background to look at biotechnology. Some of the explanations of the processes involved in the advancements made that led to PCR were a bit over my head, but interestingly, were not necessary for me to understand the bigger (and I think more important) aspects of the story. It showed me the human element behind scientific progress that I had not considered before; the chance encounters, relationships, personal challenges, influences on ideas, and personalities behind the science. I was assigned this book as a class reading and was not thrilled at the task at first, but I have garnered a new perspective on and a better understanding of biotechnology in the process. Not bad at all.

As a scientist (working on PCR technologies), the book was quite enjoyable, in particular the introduction in which the author has very interesting insights on the psychology of people working on scientific research, and made me pause for a "look at the mirror". The remaining of the book is a more casual reading, which nonetheless I found very interesting.

An interesting read, occasionally weakened by obtuse style. Interviews with those involved were enlightening, as were author's observations on industry / academic collaboration in biotech. If you're in the mileu (Aaaaah!!!), read the book.

Making PCR becomes just deceptive at the end. Such fashionable network analysis - "a la Latour" - is directly linked with the rising of a new sort of extreme relativism, or Nihilism - it is not odd when the same author is a Foucaldian follower... His micro-analysis does not provide much information apart from an account of the well-known interests of every individual within a scientific community. The author displays some interviews and traces the ties of a social web which supposely explains something (?). However, it is indeed a good example of current constructivist approaches. The monography achieves to explain what is going on in the creation of PCR - just from the point of view of the socials relations around the scientific fact- , but it does not explain much about the relation between social variable and content of knowledge, so the content of science is again black-boxed. There is not much interest in such approach apart from the similarities with other precedent works (Knorr-Cetina, Latour, Woolgar, Mulkay and so forth.)