Dmitriy Myelnikov

History of the life sciences and medicine since 1900

I started my career examining the invention and early adoption of genetically modified (transgenic) mice in the 1980s, with close attention paid to circulation of materials, researchers and techniques, and the communication of this research to diverse audiences. I am currently finishing a monograph based on this work. I have since researched the history of the Roslin Institute and the cloning of Dolly the Sheep, and the history of animal research regulation in the late-twentieth-century Britain (as part of the Animal Research Nexus). I have also investigated the history of bacteriophage therapy – the use of viruses to treat bacterial infections – across the Iron Curtain, and especially in Soviet-era Georgia.

My current research seeks to understand the history of embryo transfer, the ability to transplant embryos between mammals of the same or different species, as a reproductive technology in its own right, specifically in cattle farming. I am especially interested in why embryo transfer became commercially viable in the 1970s and was embraced by users (veterinarians, breeders, herd societies); how it changed the global mobility of embryos across diverse biosecurity regimes; and the role of freezing technologies in circulating embryos and preserving rare breeds.