Women in Early Human Cytogenetics: An Essay on a Gendered History of Chromosome Imaging

Abstract

Alongside the renowned male pioneers of medical cytogenetics, many women participated in investigations at the laboratory bench and the bedside, both in Europe and the Americas. These women were committed to this new biological and clinical practice—cytogenetics, the origins of contemporary genetic diagnosis—and contributed to the creation of new biological concepts and settings centered on the study of chromosome imaging. This paper will review the contributions made by a group of woman scientists from a wide geographical distribution, situating their names and research agendas within the history of a field dating back to early plant and insect cytogenetics. Rather than an exhaustive compendium of women geneticists, this essay presents a kind of historical reconstruction that can be achieved by placing women at center stage in their geographies and networks of circulating cytogenetic knowledge and practices thereby relating a history of genetic images though the work carried out by women, retrieving their agency and constructing an inclusive history of an influential contemporary biomedical practice as it gained increasing influence in the laboratory and the clinic.

Placing women in Cytogenetics: Lore Zech and the chromosome banding technique

“…14 Santesmases [16]. 15 Santesmases [16]: 189. 16 [Original Swedish] "Det kom att bli i första hand Casperssons docent, Lore Zech senare professor, som utarbetade implikationerna av upptäckten.…”

“…15 Santesmases [16]: 189. 16 [Original Swedish] "Det kom att bli i första hand Casperssons docent, Lore Zech senare professor, som utarbetade implikationerna av upptäckten. Värdet av den är att den för första gången gjorde varje enskild kromosom i det mänskliga genomet tydlig och konsekvent urskiljbar. "…”

“…He argues that Caspersson worked out the implications of the discovery. 16 Against this historiographical background, this article brings together several perspectives to further trace the legacy of Lore Zech. How was she portrayed in interviews, in contemporary publications, and what does her status in the scientific community look like today?…”