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The natural history of Caenorhabditis elegans research

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 2, pages 474–479 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is well known to practising biologists as a model organism. Early work with C. elegans is best understood as part of a descriptive tradition in biological practice. Although the resources that have been generated by the C. elegans community have been revolutionary, they were produced by traditional methods and approaches. Here, I review the choice and use of the worm as an experimental organism for genetics and neurobiology that began in the 1960s.

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Figure 1

(Photograph kindly provided by the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK.)

Figure 2: Copy of original laboratory notebook drawings by John Sulston.

(Kindly provided by John Sulston, The Sanger Centre, Cambridgeshire, UK.)

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Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to: C.-Y. Dougherty for sharing unpublished materials relating to the late E. C. Dougherty's research work, including a copy of a letter from Dougherty to S. Brenner dated 22 October 1963, which accompanied a sample of C. elegans; J. Hodgkin and S. Brenner for allowing me to view unpublished laboratory notebooks at present held at the LMB in Cambridge; J. Sulston for providing portions of his unpublished lineage diagrams; and other members of the worm community for their willingness to be interviewed and provide materials for my research. I am also greatly indebted to the Bancroft Archive of the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and the Public Record Office, Richmond, UK.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unit for History and Philosophy of Science, Carslaw F07

    Rachel A. Ankeny

  2. University of Sydney , Sydney, 2006, New South Wales, Australia

    Rachel A. Ankeny

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Caenorhabditis elegans

Sydney Brenner

Max Perutz

Laboratory of Molecular Biology

Francis Crick

Drosophila

Daphnia

Seymour Benzer

Planaria

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES

Charles Darwin

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Ankeny, R. The natural history of Caenorhabditis elegans research. Nat Rev Genet 2, 474–479 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35076538

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