ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Between genes, gender, and microbes: women scientists in genetic engineering in Mexico during the 1980s and the case of the first genetic sequencing

• In Event: Crafts of Microbes: Women and Gender from Antibiotics to Genetic Engineering and the Microbiome

English Abstract

In the early 1980s, Mexico experienced the rise of genetic engineering in a context marked by the end of the Cold War, when scientific and technological competition led many countries to invest in biotechnology. This momentum was reflected in the construction of laboratories where techniques such as genetic sequencing and recombinant DNA began to be standardized. This allowed for the development of local knowledge in strategic areas such as plant breeding. Within these spaces, the use of bacteria shaped both practices and the training of scientists. The technical demands of these microorganisms influenced routines, hierarchies, tacit knowledge, and modes of collaboration that defined emerging biotechnology. In traditional narratives of science, men tend to appear almost exclusively, rendering women’s participation invisible. The gender perspective in the history of science allows us to recognize women scientists as social and political subjects who began not only to integrate into new laboratories, but also to occupy positions of power, lead research groups, and open spaces that had previously been denied to them. Such is the case of the first genetic sequencing at the Center for Research on Nitrogen Fixation at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (CIFN-UNAM), a project that lasted almost a decade. This paper aims to show that the rise of biotechnology in Mexico not only represented a technical and institutional expansion, but also a social transformation within the scientific community—one that recognizes women scientists as producers of knowledge.

Authors

• Marco Ornelas-Cruces, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

• Ana Barahona, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico