This beautifully illustrated book documents the cycles of attention to and neglect of the sphere during its long history as an aspect of inquiry into human embryology and development, especially illuminating current resurgence in interest in this critical area.
From Obscurity to Spotlight
The research delves into the history of human embryology research expanding 100 years ago, then going to seed following the second world war and reemerging as a major scientific field in the late 20th century.
Towards end of the 19th century, as arguments about evolution raged and a hunger for insights into our origins developed, interest in human embryos soared. In its early development, the similarity of man with other animals was referred to by Darwinists as proof of common descent. To this, the critical anatomists countered by creating a number of networks with physicians where high-quality embryonic material was obtained; mainly from women’s pregnancy loss. With the new tools such as serial sectioning and wax modeling, researchers were able to visualize what internal structure really looks like in 3D for the first time—this led to major discoveries such as understanding when ovulation occurs during the menstrual cycle and describing human embryos at stages just two weeks after fertilization.
Developmental Biology on the Rise
However, after World War II, human embryology fell out of favor as a new discipline arose known as developmental biology. This area specialized in animal models – flies, frogs, chicks and the model mammal du jour — mice. The argument then, was that the species where you might really have a huge ability to make progress, and could do micromanipulation and biochemical analysis in an exquisite way, there were just no genetic tools.
This strategy worked well through the 1980s, by which time researchers had learnt that the processes of development are more similar to one another across animals than they thought. However, at approximately the same time that the severe human shortages pushed people to look around for other sources of cells and tissues, some interest in using human material again began to rekindle.
The advent of in-vitro fertilization that resulted in the first live birth, in 1978, was a breakthrough for having access to embryos prior to being implanted into the uterus. In its turn, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act of 1990 passed in the UK facilitated research to human embryos under harsh limits. Concurrently, the availability of ethical supplies from pregnancy terminations of post-implantation stages for research was enabled through the establishment biobanks such as the Human Developmental Biology Resource.
Conclusion
The new study’s author, Professor Nick Hopwood, is keen on the historical view as a resource for re-imagining what research on human development could be. By mapping a politics of focus and oversight, this article elucidates the forces underpinning changes in ‘the field’, from species substitution and techno-political development to turnarounds in policy and socius. This historical analysis will be particularly valuable for researchers and funders alike who are looking to forecast what future trends in the field may arise — so as to steer this juggernaut of human development research towards areas newly ripe with promise.
