Life Sciences Foundation was a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that was established in 2011 to collect, preserve, interpret, and promote the history of biotechnology. LSF conducted historical research, maintained archives and published historically relevant materials and information. On December 1, 2015, the LSF and the Chemical Heritage Foundation finalized a merger, creating one organization that covers "the history of the life sciences and biotechnology together with the history of the chemical sciences and engineering." As of February 1, 2018, the organization was renamed the Science History Institute, to reflect its wider range of historical interests, from chemical sciences and engineering to the life sciences and biotechnology. The organization is headquartered in Philadelphia but retains offices in the San Francisco Bay area.
Mandate
The LSF mandate was to collect and promote the history of biotechnology. This includes telling the stories of "scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs, managers, executives, and financiers" in order to "humanize" biotechnology to a lay audience. The history of the biotechnology industry includes examining the complex relationships and socio-political dynamics that occur when science and entrepreneurship come together.
History
The idea for a foundation that would collect and share the history of biotechnology came about at a meeting in early January 2009 in San Francisco attended by G. Steven Burrill of Burrill & Company, Dennis Gillings of Quintiles in Durham, NC,, John Lechleiter of Eli Lilly & Co., Henri Termeer, then CEO of Genzyme and Arnold Thackray, founding President and CEO of the Chemical Heritage Foundation Thackray had shaped Chemical Heritage Foundation—"the premier institution preserving the history of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related sciences and technologies." Oral history was one component of the CHF mandate of preserving interpreting, and promoting the history of science. In 1982 the University of Pennsylvania and the American Chemical Society had launched the Center for the History of Chemistry which was renamed the Chemical Heritage Foundation in 1992. Thackray, a Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry, Thackray received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the history of science from Cambridge University. Thackray argued that before LSF was founded, the recorded history of biotechnology was "fragmented, uneven, and rather paltry." He observed that, "If you don't write your own history, somebody else will do it for you, and they may be hostile." By the end of 2011, LSF's steering committee of industry leaders— Joshua Boger, Robert Carpenter, Bob Coughlin, Henri Termeer and Peter Wirth— were promoting the foundation's work by encouraging scientists and industrialists who were members of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, to contribute potential stories and materials to the archival record of the history of biotechnology in Boston and the surrounding region.
Oral History Program
The Life Sciences Foundation conducted oral history interviews with scientists, entrepreneurs, executives, policy makers, and leaders of thought in the biotechnology industry. LSF's hosts timelines, transcripts and audio recordings and provides links to existing oral histories housed at institutions across the globe.
Archives
Original documentary materials pertinent to the history of biotechnology and the life sciences are being collected. The materials include personal papers and correspondence, donated company records, laboratory notebooks, photographs, video and audio recordings. Collected materials will be guided to permanent repositories in appropriate institutional settings. Electronic reproductions will be made available to scholars, journalists, educators, and the general public in a digital archive.
Publications
LSF historians work on a range of publications including a quarterly magazine, scholarly articles, white papers, and books. These works are intended for multiple audiences and focused on the emergence and evolution of biotechnologies in pharmaceutical discovery and development, agriculture, energy production, and environmental remediation. In October 2011, the University of Chicago Press released Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech by Life Sciences Foundation historian Sally Smith Hughes.
