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Theodosius Dobzhansky's Role in the Emergence and Institutionalization of Genetics in Mexico

2005; Oxford University Press; Volume: 170; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/genetics/170.3.981

1943-2631

Ana Barahona, Francisco J. Ayala,

Plant tissue culture and regeneration

THE science of genetics was introduced in Mexico at the beginning of the twentieth century by the agronomist Edmundo Taboada, who studied in the United States at Cornell University under the direction of Rollins Emerson. For earlier Perspectives on Emerson, see Nelson (1993) and Kass et al. (2005). Taboada occupied several positions in Mexican agricultural institutions, held a professorship in the Escuela Nacional de Agricultura (National School of Agriculture), and in 1939 published the first Mexican textbook on genetics. In the 1940s and thereafter, genetics was impelled in Mexico by exiled Spanish scientists, who taught and worked primarily at the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas del IPN (National School of Biological Sciences of the National Polytechnic Institute) in Mexico City and at the Escuela Nacional de Agricultura (National School of Agriculture) in Chapingo in the south-central state of Mexico. A major impulse toward the consolidation and institutionalization of genetics in Mexico came with the creation in 1960 of the Programa de Genetica y Radiobiologia (Genetics and Radiobiology Program). This program fostered research in different areas of genetics, encouraged training of its personnel in leading institutions of the United States and Europe, and promoted the teaching of genetics at the college level. Established by Alfonso Leon de Garay (1920–2002) in Mexico City, this program conducted research in animal, plant, human, and behavioral genetics and in cytogenetics and molecular biology; it also promoted the establishment of several genetics laboratories in different parts of Mexico (Barahona et al. 2003). Theodosius Dobzhansky traveled to Mexico and collected Drosophila flies there in 1935, 1936, and 1938. His lasting influence on Mexican genetics started several decades later, mostly mediated by de Garay, who invited Dobzhansky to lecture and facilitated the initiation of a major research project on the evolutionary genetics of natural populations of Drosophila. This project involved Mexican scientists as well as Dobzhansky's former students and collaborators from the United States. In this way Dobzhansky significantly contributed to the emergence and institutionalization of genetics in Mexico.