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

Today's science tells us that our bodies are filled with molecular machinery that orchestrates all sorts of life processes. When we think, microscopic "channels" open and close in our brain cell membranes; when we run, tiny "motors" spin in our muscle cell membranes; and when we see, light operates "molecular switches" in our eyes and nerves. A molecular-mechanical vision of life has become commonplace in both the halls of philosophy and the offices of drug companies, where researchers are developing "proton pump inhibitors" or medicines similar to Prozac. Membranes to Molecular Machines explores just how late twentieth-century science came to think of our cells and bodies this way. This story is told through the lens of membrane research, an unwritten history at the crossroads of molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, and the neurosciences, that directly feeds into today's synthetic biology as well as nano- and biotechnology. Mathias Grote shows how these sciences not only have made us think differently about life, they have, by reworking what membranes and proteins represent in laboratories, allowed us to manipulate life as "active matter" in new ways. Covering the science of biological membranes in the United States and Europe from the mid-1960s to the 1990s, this book connects that history to contemporary work with optogenetics, a method for stimulating individual neurons using light, and will enlighten and provoke anyone interested in the intersection of chemical research and the life sciences—from practitioner to historian to philosopher. The research described in the book and its central actor, Dieter Oesterhelt, were honored with the 2021 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for his contribution to the development of optogenetics. Contents 8 Preface 12 Introduction: The Molecular-Mechanical Vision of Life 18 Descartes among the X-ray machines? Mechanisms, molecular machines, and the epistemology of science 28 Life and matter—another history of the molecular life sciences after 1970 33 Constitutive and exemplary: Bacteriorhodopsin, membranes, and the rise of molecular machinery 37 A note on people and places, times and sources 39 Outline of the book 40 Part One: Taking Membranes Apart, Isolating a Molecular Pump 44 1. What Membranes Can Tell a Historian and Philosopher of the Life Sciences 46 The cell’s elusive boundaries and the molecular age 50 Neglected dimensions: Membrane structure 52 "The riddle of surface action" — membrane dynamics 56 Membranes as black boxes 58 Pumps and transducers — metaphors in search of a substrate 61 Receptors and transducers, or materializations of cellular communication in the cybernetic age 63 Proteins and the promise of molecular mechanisms 66 The membrane frontier 69 Conclusion 71 2. Active Matter 73 From membrane images to membranes as Stoff — Rockefeller University, 1960s 75 From Stoff to molecule — San Francisco c. 1970 79 Purple to yellow — an active membrane material 83 The chemistry of material activity 85 Membrane structure rendered tangible 89 The new biology of membranes 92 Nature’s pleasant clue on membranes 95 Mechanical matter — Munich, 1970–1974 96 From color change to molecular mechanism—optical spectrometry 98 Cells in action—toward bioenergetics 101 Plugged into the circuit—a "molecular electric generator," Moscow 1974 109 The pump takes shape, Cambridge 1973–75 111 Material bricolage 114 Data instead of images—a new electron microscope 116 Contouring the pump 118 Visualizing molecules and mechanisms 121 Toward cryo-electron microscopy 122 Conclusion – from Stoff to molecular pump 124 Part Two: Remaking Membranes and Molecular Machines 128 3. Synthesizing Cells and Molecules — Mechanisms as "Plug-and-Play" 130 Making cell simulacra in the test tube — liposomes 133 Reconstituting the bioenergetic cell — Efraim Racker, liposomes, and molecular machinery 136 From chemiosmosis to molecular mechanisms 141 A plug-and-play — biology 143 Remaking life’s molecular inventory 150 Synthetic molecular biologists — making molecules in retorts and by machines 151 Making and unmaking molecules for structure and mechanisms 156 Molecular infrastructures — convenience genes 159 Mastering and playing with molecules 160 Conclusion I: Plug-and-play, mechanisms, and the integration toward the molecular life sciences 163 Conclusion II: From making molecules and cells to synthetic biology? A genealogy of practices in between chemistry and the life sciences 166 4. Biochip Fever: Life and Technology in the 1980s 170 Alternative computing 173 Beyond silicon — lifelike electronics 176 Membranes and proteins as biological technologies 180 Cloning a computer — the ultimate scenario of recombinant DNA 183 Molecular bionics: Self-organization, evolution, and adaptation 185 From protein to prototype: Materializing a "molecular switch" 190 Biotech and molecular electronics in West Germany 192 Visioneering versus upscaling — materializations of molecular devices 195 Conclusion I: Assemblers, Cartesian molecular machines, and active matter 199 Conclusion II: After the fever pitch — a more inclusive history of biotechnology 202 Conclusion 206 Matter, activity, and mechanisms at the interstice of the chemical and the life sciences 207 Molecular machinery in past, present, and beyond 214 The bigger picture — membranes and molecular machines in the history of the life and the chemical sciences 217 Beyond life? Places and scientists after molecular biology 222 List of Abbreviations 228 Glossary 230 Notes 236 Sources 268 References 270 Index 292 Today's science tells us that our bodies are filled with molecular machinery that orchestrates all sorts of life processes. When we think, microscopic "channels" open and close in our brain cell membranes; when we run, tiny "motors" spin in our muscle cell membranes; and when we see, light operates "molecular switches" in our eyes and nerves. A molecular-mechanical vision of life has become commonplace in both the halls of philosophy and the offices of drug companies, where researchers are developing "proton pump inhibitors" or medicines similar to Prozac. Membranes to Molecular Machines explores just how late twentieth-century science came to think of our cells and bodies this way. This story is told through the lens of membrane research, an unwritten history at the crossroads of molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, and the neurosciences, that directly feeds into today's synthetic biology as well as nano- and biotechnology. Mathias Grote shows how these sciences not only have made us think differently about life, they have, by reworking what membranes and proteins represent in laboratories, allowed us to manipulate life as "active matter" in new ways. Covering the science of biological membranes in the United States and Europe from the mid-1960s to the 1990s, this book connects that history to contemporary work with optogenetics, a method for stimulating individual neurons using light, and will enlighten and provoke anyone interested in the intersection of chemical research and the life sciences--from practitioner to historian to philosopher. -- Provided by publisher Today's science tells us that our bodies are filled with molecular machinery that orchestrates all sorts of life processes. When we think, microscopic "channels"open and close in our brain cell membranes; when we run, tiny "motors"spin in our muscle cell membranes; and when we see, light operates "molecular switches"in our eyes and nerves. A molecular-mechanical vision of life has become commonplace in both the halls of philosophy and the offices of drug companies, where researchers are developing “proton pump inhibitors” or medicines similar to Prozac. __Membranes to Molecular Machines__ explores just how late twentieth-century science came to think of our cells and bodies this way. This story is told through the lens of membrane research, an unwritten history at the crossroads of molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, and the neurosciences, that directly feeds into today's synthetic biology as well as nano- and biotechnology. Mathias Grote shows how these sciences not only have made us think differently about life, they have, by reworking what membranes and proteins represent in laboratories, allowed us to manipulate life as "active matter"in new ways. Covering the science of biological membranes in the United States and Europe from the mid-1960s to the 1990s, this book connects that history to contemporary work with optogenetics, a method for stimulating individual neurons using light, and will enlighten and provoke anyone interested in the intersection of chemical research and the life sciences—from practitioner to historian to philosopher. This work tells the story of how a molecular-mechanical vision of life has become omnipresent in the sciences, biomedicine, and bio- and nanotechnologies of the late twentieth century. Thereby, it adds a novel historical chapter to the longstanding scientific and philosophical problem of the relationship between organisms and machines, now at the level of machine-like molecules. Investigating the history of research on proteins and cell membranes (an essential feature of life just as genes are), this text explores how life's molecular machinery has been shaped by experimental investigation of active biological materials