Evelyn Witkin Collection

The following is another post in our series highlighting the collections that are being processed through the NHPRC Basic Processing Grant.

Witkin and A.H. Sparrow at the 1947 CSH Symposium

Evelyn M. Witkin is an American geneticist whose research has been widely influential in the areas of DNA mutagenesis and DNA repair.

The Evelyn Witkin Collection at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory consists of three series including Dr. Witkin’s professional correspondence with Nobelist Barbara McClintock, Joshua Lederberg, and Ruth Sager among others. There is a complete collection of her personal reprints as well as historical documents related to her work on the “SOS Response”.

 Witkin’s connection to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is through her work at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Department of Genetics where she was a staff scientist from 1945 until 1955. During her time at the Department of Genetics, she isolated a UV radiation-resistant mutant of E. coli, the first time this work had been done. 

Dr. Witkin is a frequent visitor to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.  Dr. Witkin participated in the CSHL Oral History Project in and her interview can be viewed on the Oral History Office website at http://library.cshl.edu/oralhistory/speaker/evelyn-witkin/. 

- C.C., Archivist

The Office of Technology Transfer Collection

The following is another post in our series highlighting the collections that are being processed through the NHPRC Basic Processing Grant.

The Office of Technology Transfer Collection documents CSHL’s first inroads into the world of Biotechnology.  Research that was initially carried out in academic laboratories led to the development of recombinant DNA techniques.  This in turn stimulated entrepreneurial scientists to create biotechnology companies. Recombinant DNA is the technology that allows us to insert genes from one organism into another to make it produce a protein product, copy the gene multiple times, or give it a new trait. The discovery of recombinant DNA was considered the "birth" of modern biotechnology.  

CSHL has always been on the forefront of scientific research and discoveries.  Thus, it was a natural progression that the Lab should move into biotechnology.   Here we will show a brief overview of three early forays.

1.       Cellbiology Corporation, a biotechnology company established in 1980, was a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It was originally conceived as the commercial arm of the Lab and as an entity that would initiate CSHL into the biotech world and harness the developments in gene splicing and recombinant DNA techniques.   Cellbiology was used for a few projects in the early-to-mid 1980s, but it never developed into a long-term concern.  The most significant work occured in 1982: Cellbiology Corporation signed a contract with Baxter Travenol, "covering the development of Tissue Plasminogen Activator (tPA) as a potentially useful pharmaceutical product to dissolve blood clots."   Together, the two companies contracted to work with the Genetics Institute in Boston on the Activator.  In July 1984, Baxter Travenol sold its interests in tPA technology to Burroughs Wellcome. Cellbiology Corporation was kept mostly dormant from the mid-1980s on, and it was dissolved in 1995. 

Dr. Harlow in 1986 with URP student Abhjeet Lele

2.       Ed Harlow: In 1988, while working at CSHL, Ed Harlow and his colleagues established "a crucial functional link between the two general classes of cancer-causing genes (oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes)".  Oncogenes  (tumor inducing genes) induce changes in cell phenotype.  Adenovirus oncogene E1A can immortalize primary cells and can also cooperate with the adenovirus E1B gene or other oncogene to transform cells in culture.  The transformed cells will induce tumors in animals.  E1A encoded proteins are potent regulators of gene expression able to modulate transcription of both viral and cellular genes.  E1A proteins activate transcription of the other adenovirus early genes and certain cellular genes.  They also repress transcription of genes linked to certain viral or cellular enhancers.

In addition to his work on oncogens, while at CSHL, Dr. Harlow and Nick Dyson worked under a relationship between CSHL and Amersham on monoclonal antibodies.  Dr. Harlow left CSHL in February of 1991 to become scientific director at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. 

3.       ICOS Corp. was founded in early 1990 as a Seattle-based drug discovery company specializing in inflammatory diseases. ICOS was founded by three men: George Rathmann, founder of Amgen; Robert Nowinski, founder of Genetic Systems Corporation; and Christopher Henney, founder of Immunex Corporation.

The formal relationship between CSHL and ICOS began in April 1990 with a licensing agreement under which ICOS was obligated to pay CSHL royalties for all PDE [phosphodiesterase] products developed by ICOS that used Michael Wigler's patented techniques.  ICOS eventually developed the popular drug Cialis from Dr. Wigler's technology. This portion of the Collection is restricted due to confidentiality obligations between ICOS and CSHL.

Here is a photo of the early scientists and administrators involved with ICOS, circa 1990. 

- Amy Driscoll, Project Archivist

CSHL Map and Bluepint Collection

The following is another post in our series highlighting the collections that are being processed through the NHPRC Basic Processing Grant.

“To put a city in a book, to put the world on one sheet of paper -- maps are the most condensed humanized spaces of all...They make the landscape fit indoors, make us masters of sights we can't see and spaces we can't cover.”
― Robert Harbison, Eccentric Spaces

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is listed on the Historic Register of Places in New York. Our Map and Blueprint Collection is the only place to find many of the unique maps dating from the 1890s.  Even the local historical societies do not have these maps, which represent the history of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. This Collection is truly a record of the evolution of the property, buildings and institution in its entirety.

The Cold Spring Harbor Map and Blueprint Collection consists of topographical maps, architectural drawings, pencil drawings, pencil sketches, and blue prints of the grounds and buildings over the course of 140 years.

These records have been stored on site since their creation, originally in administrative offices under various Laboratory Directors until their removal to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Library and Archives.  Most of the material designates the sibling institutions that commissioned the work:  Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Long Island Biological Association and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Despite their historic importance, the storage of the Map and Blueprint Collection has been deficient.  Many of the documents had foxing as seen on this map of lands leased to the Carnegie Institute, 1908.   

Others fell prey to insect damage as shown on this 1928 rendering of the George Lane Nichols building section.

While the damage can be repaired, it is usually disproportionally expensive to the cost of proper storage.

Fortunately, we were able to stabilize the entire Collection which should at least halt the progress of damage.  Appropriate storage boxes, tubes and paper were procured. Approximately 40 hours were spent boxing, wrapping and preserving the Collection. 

Now that it is stabilized, this Collection can be used with its related Collections: the Carnegie Institute of Washington, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Long Island Biological Association and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to study and appreciate the many aspects of our history.  On the surface, the maps and blueprints show the physical expansion of the lab from a rural, seasonal facility to multiple campuses larger than many universities.  On closer perusal, one can see how the types of buildings commissioned demonstrate the Lab’s changing focus from marine biology to genetics to cancer research. Expansion, development and renovation exploded under the leadership of Dr. Watson in 1968 and the number of prints and blueprints post 1970 reflect this. It is our hope that now that this Collection has the proper care and organization, it can be used to supplement historical displays both physically and digitally.

- E.P., Project Archivist

Banbury Reports Collection

The following is another post in our series highlighting the collections that are being processed through the NHPRC Basic Processing Grant.

In 1976, Charles Sammis Robertson, who lived in Lloyd Harbor, about 5 miles from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, gave his estate on Banbury Lane, together with an endowment for its upkeep, to the Cold Spring Harbor Lab for use as a conference center.  This postcard, incorporating a photo taken by R. Meurer, captures the Charles Sammis Robertson House looking towards Coopers Bluff.    

Since 1978 the Banbury Center has been the site of competitive and  intensive courses as well as international meetings on topics in biology, biomedical topics and theoretical biology.  The Center holds workshop-discussion style meetings on topics in almost every area of modern experimental biology and on important policy issues.  The Banbury Report Collection consists of manuscripts, transcripts, publisher’s galleys, reprints, and correspondence with various authors and program notes relating to science-related meetings held at the Banbury Center.  These materials were used in conjunction with the publication of the Banbury Reports by the Cold Spring Harbor Press.

- E.P., Project Archivist

Cold Spring Harbor Audio Visual Collection

Processing the Cold Spring Harbor Audio Visual Collection was a unique experience due to the volume and scope of the Collection. The Collection overall consists of 4,950 pieces of media, in 11 different formats and takes up about 130 linear feet of shelf space, depending how you count it. It was grouped by format but hadn’t been looked at in years, which meant that old inventory lists, if they existed, were no longer accurate.  I had to start over cataloguing the media which took about 165 hours.  Keeping the Collection grouped by media made sense on one level (as opposed to grouping by subject matter) because much of the media was not readable and the processing often became a game of “Name that obsolete Format”.  Below is a photograph of the Analog Video Formats.  

I learned that at the time of recording the formats were considered state of the art.  Now we, as an Archive, are unable to read or view what is on the tapes. eBay is full of players and recording devices and there are blogs which lament the demise of the Hi-8 tape.  But the lessons ring through loud and clear.  We as Archivists prepare Disaster Plans to prevent and manage threats to our collection.  Typical threats are leaky pipes, electrical shorts and poor storage climates.  

But isn’t the real threat to our collection the possibility of losing our information?  Behold the Type C Helical Film Reel and let us go forth and regularly assess our formats for compatibility and retrieval.

- Amy Driscoll, Project Archivist