As the pandemic continues to affect every corner of the globe, this year’s World Health Day celebration on April 7 will be more important than ever. You’ll need more than just one day to explore all the fascinating health and medicine content we have, but you can start by taking a virtual tour of our Second Skin exhibition on Google Arts & Culture. Next you can learn how Louis Pasteur created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax in the 19th century. And be sure to check out our Pandemic Perspectives series, which features topical Distillations stories that provide historical context for our current public health crisis. The series includes an interview with John C. Martin, the former CEO of Gilead Sciences and our 2017 Biotechnology Heritage Award winner, who we are saddened to learn passed away on March 30.
|
|
The Science History Institute’s conference center is now open and ready to welcome you back. Our team has spent the last several months developing and testing enhanced guidelines for in-person gatherings and honing our virtual and hybrid event skills. Contact us today at 215-629-5151 or facilityrental@sciencehistory.org for reservations, site tours, and brainstorming sessions on how to turn an idea into an exceptional experience.
|
|
Illustration depicting the Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, an international healthcare mission to combat smallpox, 1803–1806. 📷 Carles Puche/Mètode
|
|
The Science History Institute has teamed up with New York Times best-selling author and frequent Distillations contributor Sam Kean to bring a new history of science podcast to our listeners. Launched on March 30, The Disappearing Spoon tells little-known stories from our scientific past—from the saga of the male birth control pill to the shocking way the smallpox vaccine was transported around the world. The latter is the subject of the new series’ first episode titled Orphan Vaccines.
And don’t worry, the Distillations podcast isn’t going anywhere! We’re still producing the in-depth, narrative-style episodes you know and love. Look for the next season of Distillations this summer. In the meantime, you can listen now to a recent interview with Kean.
|
|
The Science History Institute is pleased to welcome Cynthia Cai as a member of our board of directors. She is the founder and president of Tharton Consulting LLC, which provides investment and management consulting services. She is also a venture partner of Viva BioInnovator, an equity investor in biotech innovation with novel solutions to cross multiple therapeutic areas. Before that, Cai served as senior advisor to Northern Light Venture Capital, leading its healthcare investment effort in the United States.
|
|
Thursday, April 8, 2021
1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. EDT
|
|
|
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m. EDT
|
|
|
The Science History Institute and the American Philosophical Society invite you to join us online for part three of our three-part workshop series on deciphering historical documents throughout time. Led by Newberry Library fellow Julie Fisher, our April session features Michelle DiMeo, the Institute’s Arnold Thackray Director of the Othmer Library, who will talk about Lady Ranelagh and alchemy, and take us back in time to transcribe one of our earliest documents, a 17th-century letter that shows us how alchemy’s secrets helped create modern science.
|
|
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
2:00 p.m.–3:30 p.m. EDT
|
|
|
Join us for our first-ever virtual Heritage Day Awards ceremony celebrating exceptional achievements in chemistry, chemical engineering, the life sciences, and allied fields and industries. This year’s awardees include Dame Carol Robinson, the Dr. Lee’s Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford; former Brenntag AG CEO Steven Holland; and Peter J. Stang, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Utah.
|
|
Polio vaccinations being administered in Juba, South Sudan, 2014. 📷 UN Photo/JC McIlwaine
|
|
Smallpox, polio, and the political and scientific haggling behind two medical triumphs.
|
|
How a 19th-century invention could save lives today.
|
|
Sophisticated drugs have enabled those with HIV to live long lives—as long as they take their medication.
|
|
-
Penicillin Fermentation Vessel, porcelain vessel for growing penicillin believed to be one of the originals used by researchers at the University of Oxford, 1940s
|
|
Detail of a portrait of Louis Pasteur in his laboratory. 📷 Science History Institute/Gregory Tobias
|
|
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) showed that microorganisms cause both fermentation and disease, supporting the germ theory at a time when its validity was still being questioned. In his ongoing quest for disease treatments, he developed the first vaccines for fowl cholera, anthrax, and rabies using weakened, or attenuated, microbes. Revered by his successors in the life sciences as well as by the general public, the French microbiologist is also known for pasteurization, the pathogen-destroying heating process that bears his name.
|
|
|
|
Now more than ever it’s important to tell the stories of science. Help us continue this work by supporting the Science History Institute.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
