Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory - History

History

The laboratory began its history in 1890 as an extension of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; in 1904, the Carnegie Institution of Washington established the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor on the site. In 1921, the station was reorganized as the Carnegie Institution Department of Genetics.

From 1910 to 1940, the laboratory was also the home of the Eugenics Record Office of biologist Charles B. Davenport and his assistant Harry H. Laughlin, two prominent American eugenicists of the period. In 1935 the Carnegie Institution sent a team to review their work, and as a result the ERO was ordered to stop all efforts. In 1939 the Institute withdrew funding for the ERO entirely, leading to its closure. Their reports, articles, charts, and pedigrees were considered scientific "facts" in their day, but have since been discredited. However, this closure came 15 years after its findings were incorporated into the National Origins Act (Immigration Act of 1924), which severely reduced the number of immigrants to America from southern and eastern Europe who, Harry Laughlin testified, were racially inferior to the Nordic immigrants from England and Germany. Charles Davenport was also the founder and the first director of the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations in 1925.

The Carnegie Institution Department of Genetics scientists at Cold Spring Harbor made many important contributions to the sciences of genetics, medicine, and the then-infant science of molecular biology. In 1962 its facilities merged with those of The Brooklyn Institute's Biological Laboratory to create what is known today as Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

In 1944 Barbara McClintock discovered transposons ("jumping genes"), for which she received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 1952 the experiments of Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase at the laboratory confirmed DNA as the genetic material. The laboratory is also known for the work of Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria on phage and molecular genetics. Another CSHL scientist Richard J. Roberts received a Nobel prize for the co-discovery of introns and RNA splicing.

Nobel laureate James D. Watson (who co-discovered the double helix structure of DNA with Francis Crick and first presented it at the CSHL symposium on viruses) served as the Laboratory's Director and President for 35 years, until the Board of Trustees at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory suspended Watson's administrative responsibilities due to controversial remarks he made to The Times in 2007. He focused the lab on cancer research in part by creating a tumor virus group that continues its research up to today. Since 1987 CSHL is a NCI-designated cancer center. Plants genetics research at the Laboratory was reinvigorated in the 1980s. In 1990, the program of neuroscience research at CSHL was significantly expanded with the completion of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Laboratory. With the construction of several new laboratory buildings on the hillside campus in 2009, CSHL created a new program on quantitative biology to bring the best minds in mathematics, computer science, statistics, and physics to problems in biology.

Since 1994 cancer biologist Bruce Stillman leads the laboratory, serving as President from 2003. Stillman is member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society. In October 2007 Watson retired as Chancellor under pressure as a result of controversial remarks about race made to The Sunday Times in the U.K.

CSHL participates in the iPlant Collaborative funded by the National Science Foundation in 2008.