This paper delves into the historical development of recombinant DNA technology, examining the pivotal controversies surrounding public health and commercialization that emerged with the prospect of gene cloning in the 1970s. The analysis will focus on the recombinant DNA experiments planned, aborted, and conducted by Janet Mertz and John Morrow, two graduate students at Paul Berg’s laboratory at Stanford University. Their experiments, as I show, served as catalysts for both fear and excitement within the biomedical research community and beyond. Mertz’s initial experiment, while groundbreaking, inadvertently ignited biohazard concerns, leading to the establishment of the Asilomar I Conference in 1973. Despite the controversy, Mertz’s contributions are essential for understanding the broader scientific and sociocultural contexts surrounding the early development of genetic engineering. Morrow’s subsequent cloning experiment, in collaboration with Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer, as this paper shows, played a crucial role in shifting scientific and public sentiments around recombinant DNA, intensifying the tension between safety concerns and commercial aspirations. This paper thus reconstructs in some respects Mertz’ and Morrow’s investigative pathways, their contributions to technical and social discussions, and their youthful perspectives on gene cloning. It reveals how key contributions and concerns of Mertz and Morrow became increasingly discredited, undermined, and marginalized, by situating the Asilomar Conference of 1975 fully within the context of the complex interplay between scientific advancements, societal and public health concerns, and commercial aspirations that shaped the fate of gene cloning in the 1970s.

Historians of science often assume that the debate over recombinant DNA's safety was resolved by the national dialoge between scientists and states started by Asilomar. However, I argue that first, discussions of the potential dangers of recombinant DNA were profoundly shaped by local communities and their concerns, and secondly, that the resolution of these discussions extended far beyond the formal structures established to govern recombinant DNA.

As a hotbed of academic and commercial recombinant DNA research in the 1980s and the crucible for critiques of recombinant DNA developed after Asilomar, the communities in the Boston area provide an important point from which to think about how we approach the nature of the controversies sparked by Asilomar and the terms of their resolution. I provide three moments in the local history of this conference. The reception of recombinant DNA in the Boston area was especially shaped by the prior experience of its communities with industrial pollution and industrial hazards, as well as their confrontation with the loss of jobs marked by deindustrialization. In this context, safety and risk were a broader matter than technical containment but extended to how the acceptance of recombinant DNA might promote the health of their communities. While these understandings of danger and risk often ran askance of the perceptions and priorities of scientists, they nonetheless play a vital role in shaping the relationship between biology and society that emerged from Asilomar.

The internationalization of Asilomar has received little attention in the historiography to date. In particular, the European impact on and response to the Asilomar Conference as well as on the subsequent history of the recombinant DNA guidelines, have remained largely unexplored. To shift the focus away from a US-centric analysis of the Asilomar Conference, this paper examines the European perspective, specifically the role of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) as a key actor in recombinant DNA research and its regulation on both sides of the Atlantic and the continuing impact of this experience on science policy debates in Europe.

Prof Soraya De Chadarevian