Although modern cell biology is often considered to have arisen
following World War II in tandem with certain technological and
methodological advances--in particular, the electron microscope and cell
fractionation--its origins actually date to the 1830s and the
development of cytology, the scientific study of cells. By 1924, with
the publication of Edmund Vincent Cowdry's General Cytology, the
discipline had stretched beyond the bounds of purely microscopic
observation to include the chemical, physical, and genetic analysis of
cells. Inspired by Cowdry's classic, watershed work, this book collects
contributions from cell biologists, historians, and philosophers of
science to explore the history and current status of cell biology.
Despite extraordinary advances in describing both the structure and
function of cells, cell biology tends to be overshadowed by molecular
biology, a field that developed contemporaneously. This book remedies
that unjust disparity through an investigation of cell biology's
evolution and its role in pushing forward the boundaries of biological
understanding. Contributors show that modern concepts of cell
organization, mechanistic explanations, epigenetics, molecular thinking,
and even computational approaches all can be placed on the continuum of
cell studies from cytology to cell biology and beyond. The first book in
the series Convening Science: Discovery at the Marine Biological
Laboratory, Visions of Cell Biology sheds new light on a century of
cellular discovery.
