Membranes to Molecular Machines: Active Matter and the Remaking of Life

307 Pages·2019·3.947 MB·English

by  Mathias Grote

Membranes to Molecular Machines
Synthesis
A series in the history of chemistry, broadly construed, edited by Carin
Berkowitz, Angela N. H. Creager, John E. Lesch, Lawrence M. Principe,
Alan Rocke, and E. C. Spary, in partnership with the Science History
Institute
Membranes to Molecular Machines:
Active Matter and the Remaking of Life
Mathias Grote
The University of Chicago Press :: Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2019 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief
quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact
the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 62515- 7 (cloth)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 62529- 4 (e- book)
doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226625294.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Grote, Mathias, author.
Title: Membranes to molecular machines : active matter and the remaking
of life / Mathias Grote.
Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018044853 | isbn 9780226625157 (cloth : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780226625294 (e- book)
Subjects: LCSH: Molecular biology— Research— History. | Membranes
(Biology)— Research— History. | Biotechnology— Research— History.
Classification: LCC QH506 .G768 2019 | DDC 572.8— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018044853
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
To my parents, who taught me to
look at small things
d’alembert: [ . . . ] Si c’est une qualité générale de la matière,
il faut que la pierre sente.
diderot: Pourquoi non?
d’alembert: Cela est dur à croire.
diderot: Oui, pour celui qui la coupe, la taille, la broue et qui
ne l’entend pas crier.
Denis Diderot, Entretien entre Diderot et d’Alembert, 1769.
Contents
Preface xi
Introduction: The Molecular-Mechanical
Vision of Life 1
Descartes among the X- ray machines? Mechanisms,
molecular machines, and the epistemology
of science 11
Life and matter— another history of the molecular
life sciences after 1970 16
Constitutive and exemplary: Bacteriorhodopsin,
membranes, and the rise of molecular
machinery 20
A note on people and places, times and sources 22
Outline of the book 23
P art One: Taking Membranes Apart, Isolating a
Molecular Pump
1 What Membranes Can Tell a Historian and
Philosopher of the Life Sciences 29
The cell’s elusive boundaries and the molecular age 33
Neglected dimensions: Membrane structure 35
“The riddle of surface action”— membrane
dynamics 39
Membranes as black boxes 41
CoNtENtS viii
Pumps and transducers— metaphors in search
of a substrate 44
Receptors and transducers, or materializations of
cellular communication in the cybernetic age 46
Proteins and the promise of molecular
mechanisms 49
The membrane frontier 52
Conclusion 54
2 Active Matter 56
From membrane images to membranes as Stoff—
Rockefeller University, 1960s 58
From Stoff to molecule— San Francisco c. 1970 62
Purple to yellow— an active membrane material 66
The chemistry of material activity 68
Membrane structure rendered tangible 72
The new biology of membranes 75
Nature’s pleasant clue on membranes 78
Mechanical matter— Munich, 1970– 1974 79
From color change to molecular mechanism—
optical spectrometry 81
Cells in action— toward bioenergetics 84
Plugged into the circuit— a “molecular electric
generator,” Moscow 1974 92
The pump takes shape, Cambridge 1973– 75 94
Material bricolage 97
Data instead of images— a new electron
microscope 99
Contouring the pump 101
Visualizing molecules and mechanisms 104
Toward cryo- electron microscopy 105
Conclusion– from Stoff to molecular pump 107
Part Two: Remaking Membranes and Molecular Machines
3 Synthesizing Cells and Molecules— Mechanisms
as “Plug- and- Play” 113
Making cell simulacra in the test tube— liposomes 116
Reconstituting the bioenergetic cell— Efraim Racker,
liposomes, and molecular machinery 119
From chemiosmosis to molecular mechanisms 124
CoNtENtS ix
A plug- and- play— biology 126
Remaking life’s molecular inventory 129
Synthetic molecular biologists— making molecules
in retorts and by machines 130
Making and unmaking molecules for structure
and mechanisms 135
Molecular infrastructures— convenience genes 138
Mastering and playing with molecules 139
Conclusion I: Plug- and- play, mechanisms, and the
integration toward the molecular life sciences 142
Conclusion II: From making molecules and cells to
synthetic biology? A genealogy of practices in
between chemistry and the life sciences 145
4 Biochip Fever: Life and Technology in the 1980s 149
Alternative computing 152
Beyond silicon— lifelike electronics 155
Membranes and proteins as biological technologies 159
Cloning a computer— the ultimate scenario of
recombinant DNA 162
Molecular bionics: Self- organization, evolution,
and adaptation 164
From protein to prototype: Materializing a
“molecular switch” 169
Biotech and molecular electronics in
West Germany 171
Visioneering versus upscaling— materializations
of molecular devices 174
Conclusion I: Assemblers, Cartesian molecular
machines, and active matter 178
Conclusion II: After the fever pitch— a more
inclusive history of biotechnology 181
Conclusion 185
Matter, activity, and mechanisms at the interstice
of the chemical and the life sciences 186
Molecular machinery in past, present, and beyond 193
The bigger picture— membranes and molecular
machines in the history of the life and the
chemical sciences 196
Beyond life? Places and scientists after molecular
biology 201