A History of Biophysics in Contemporary China

This book gives a concise history of biophysics in contemporary China, from about 1949 to 1976. It outlines how a science specialty evolved from an ambiguous and amorphous field into a fully-fledged academic discipline in the socio-institutional contexts of contemporary China. The book relates how, while initially consisting of cell biologists, the Chinese biophysics community redirected their disciplinary priorities toward rocket science in the late 1950s to accommodate the national interests of the time. Biophysicists who had worked on biological sounding rockets were drawn to the military sector and continued to contribute to human spaceflight in post-Mao China. Besides the rocket-and-space missions which provided the material context for biophysics to expand in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Chinese biophysicists also created research and educational programs surrounding biophysics by exploiting the institutional opportunities afforded by the policy emphasis on science's role to drive modernization. The book explores and demonstrates the collective achievements and struggles of Chinese biophysicists in building their scientific discipline.

Christine Yi Lai Luk holds a doctorate in the human and social dimensions of science and technology from Arizona State University (ASU). She is interested in exploring the intersection between the scientific establishment and cultural knowledge forms in non-Western settings. Her pursuit of non-Western scientific culture was supported by the History of Science Society (HSS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the D. Kim Foundation for the History of Science and Technology in East Asia, and the Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fund Council. This book stems from her doctoral dissertation, entitled 'Biophysics, Rockets, and the State: the Making of a Scientific Discipline in Twentieth-Century China.' Before coming to the United States, Dr. Luk completed her M.Phil at the City University of Hong Kong where she taught a variety of courses ranging from globalization and development, social change and development in East and Southeast Asia. She is currently teaching at Arizona State University, where she has developed and co-taught several graduate and undergraduate courses in science and technology policy. Her work has appeared in Research Yearbook of Philosophy of Technology in China and Women in Engineering and Technology Research. She is currently working on a second research project investigating the role of Chinese medicine in sustaining the Chinese community among Sino-Burmese families in post-Independence Burma/Myanmar. Her research endeavors are centered around the re-examination of historical relationships and the re-imagination of cultural patterns through the prism of biomedical science in East and Southeast Asia.