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This Ph.D. dissertation is an intellectual history
that traces the development of the investigative
pathway carved out by Frank Macfarlane Burnet during
the course of his research on bacteriophages. Burnet
was a Nobel Prize-winning Australian microbiologist
who made seminal contributions to virology and
immunology in the mid-20th century. He began his
career by studying bacteriophages and made important
discoveries in this area between 1924 and 1937. Of
particular significance are his studies on phage
growth, through which which helped establish the
identity of phages as bacterial viruses, a
much-debated issue in the scientific community at
that time. Also significant is his work on the
problem of lysogeny, a matter of considerable
controversy among phage biologists, for which Burnet
furnished an elegant solution. Using a combination of
Burnet s published papers and personal writings,
primarily diaries and letters, this dissertation
traces the development of his phage work and analyzes
its influence on his later research in the
disciplines for which he became famous.
About the author
Neeraja Sankaran is a historian of science (Ph.D., Yale
University, 2006) and a science writer (Graduate Certificate,
UC-Santa Cruz, 2003). Currently she is a visiting assistant
professor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt.
