Books
2019 Robin Wolfe Scheffler, A Contagious Cause: The American Hunt for Cancer Viruses and the Rise of Molecular Medicine (University of Chicago Press)
Public Scholarship
2021 "The ‘War on Cancer’ continues, 50 years on. Who sets the terms of victory?" Washington Post December 31.
2021 Appearance in NPR news story "50 years ago, Nixon gave the U.S. a 'Christmas present,' launching the war on cancer"
2021 "Molecular Medicine in the War on Cancer: Success or Failure?" NIH History of Medicine Lecture Series. [captioned videorecording]
2021 "Brightening Biochemistry: The Role of Humor in Scientific Research." Science History Institute Lunchtime Lectures Series.
2021 "COVID Calls: Biomedicine in the Archives" with Scott Knowles and Joanna Radin. Sponsored by the American Philosphical Society and the Linda Hall Library.
2020 "Biotechnology, Race, and Memory in Washington Heights," for Gotham Center for the History of New York City.
2020 "A coronavirus vaccine can’t come at the expense of fighting the virus now," Washington Post July 24th.
2020 "Promise and Perils of a COVID-19 Vaccine" Duke University Valuing Care Colloquium Series.
2019 "Tech Masters of Disaster Part 3" interview about Kendall Square and biotechnology for Radio Open Source.
2019 "The Search for a Cancer Virus (1966)" introductory essay to film of same name for National Library of Medicine's Criculating Now.
Articles in Refereed Journals
2022 (with Natalie B. Aviles) "State planning, cancer vaccine infrastructure, and the origins of the oncogene theory" Social Studies of Science
2020 "Brightening Biochemistry: Humor, Identity, and Scientific Work at the Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry, 1923-1931,” Isis 111/3: 493-518.
2020 "Bankrolling Creative Destruction,” Reviews in American History 48/3: 470–75
2019 “Protecting Children: The American Turn from Polio to Cancer Vaccines,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 126/26: E739–41. [open access]
2015 “The Power of Exercise and the Exercise of Power: The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, Distance Running, and the Disappearance of Work, 1919-1947,” Journal of the History of Biology 48/3, 391-423.
2014 “Following Cancer Viruses through the Laboratory, Clinic, and Society,” introduction to “100 Years of Viruses and Cancer” special issue [served as section editor], Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 48B, 185-188.
2014 “Managing the Future: The Special Virus Leukemia Program and the Acceleration of Biomedical Research,” for a special section entitled “100 Years of Viruses and Cancer,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 48B (2014), 231-249.
2011 “The Fate of a Progressive Science: the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, Athletes, the Science of Work and the Politics of Reform,” Endeavour 35/2-3, 48-54.
2009 “Interests and Instrument: A Micro-History of Object Wh.3469 (X-ray Powder Diffraction Camera c. 1940),” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 40/4, 396-408.
Chapters in Books
2020 "X-Ray Crystallography of Biomaterials.” In Between Making and Knowing: Tools in the History of Materials Research, edited by Joseph D Martin and Cyrus C M Mody, 425–33. Singapore: World Scientific.
2015 “Biomedical Sciences, History and Sociology of.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), edited by James D. Wright, 663–69. Oxford: Elsevier. [lead author with Bruno J. Strasser)]
MIT DSpace Page [book reviews, etc.]