The reversal of roles of lysogeny in the history of understanding the nature of bacterial viruses

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This paper was a collaboration between a historian (myself) and philosopher (Kostyrka) of science. It drew equally from our independent research on nature of viruses--especially bacteriophages, the phenomenon of lysogeny and the relationship between their discoveries and treatment at the hands of various scientists, primarily in the first half of the century. My interest in the subject, was borne out of my PhD research into the research career of the Australian biologist, F. Macfarlane Burnet, who early work (1925-1939) on bacteriophages had been largely overlooked by historians. The revelations borne of this study led to a comparative project between the history of the research on viruses more broadly, and specifically on the parallels between the history of bacteriophage research and of research on tumor viruses. The role of lysogeny in the life cycle of some bacteriophages, only speculated upon by Burnet, was detailed and consolidated in the 1950s by Andre Lwoff (whose work was the focus of Kostyrka's philosophical research). His findings proved to be the 'linchpin' that finally brought about a convergence in the parallel research trajectories of the two viruses that I was investigating. The common ground between Kostyrka's work and mine, led to the crafting and publication of this paper.

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