The Early History of Tissue Culture in Britain: The Interwar Years.

The technique of tissue culture has, throughout the twentieth century, become a mainstay of biomedical research, and exists today as a celebrated scientific tool. However, an examination of its early history demonstrates that it was once contested, with professional opinion differing as to its value to science and medicine, and, crucially for the purposes of this article, considerable public awareness of its potential and perceived pitfalls. Here, the hitherto neglected situation in the early British history of tissue culture will be studied, with the focus being the work performed at the Strangeways Research Laboratory in Cambridge during the interwar years of the last century. Examination of the early life of this institution shows that scientists eager to stress the technique's viability tapped into popular sentiment to overstress its potential, in a fashion reminiscent of earlier experimental biologists and their contemporary American counterparts. This ultimately backfired on British culturists as the press coverage of their work became incredibly sensationalist, and increasingly sinister in tone, and scientific fact and fantastical speculation became inseparable.