Nathaniel Charles Comfort | |
|---|---|
 Comfort in 2016 | |
| Born | 1962 |
| Occupation | Researcher, professor, writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | |
Nathaniel Charles Comfort is an American historian specializing in the history of biology. He is an associate professor in the Institute of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.[1] In 2015, he was appointed the third Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology at the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center.[2] He also serves on the advisory council of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence).
Comfort is best known for his 2001 biography of Barbara McClintock, The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock's Search for the Patterns of Genetic Control. He has been praised for his reinterpretation of the response to McClintock's work on controlling elements.[3] His 2012 book The Science of Human Perfection examines the history of human and medical genetics in America. He has written about the development of gene editing and its relationship to the United States' eugenics movement.[4][5][6] He is working on a history of the genomic revolution in origin-of-life research.[2]
- ^ "Nathaniel Comfort, PhD". Department of the History of Medicine. Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved 2 July 2016.
- ^ a b "Nathaniel Comfort Named to Chair in Astrobiology at John W. Kluge Center". Library of Congress. 7 April 2015.
- ^ Keirns, Carla (January–February 2002). "Demythologizing McClintock". American Scientist. Archived from the original on 25 June 2016. Retrieved 2 July 2016.
- ^ Pemberton, Stephen (September 2013). "Nathaniel Comfort. The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine". Isis. 104 (3): 644–645. doi:10.1086/674508.
- ^ Hosman, Elliot (July 23, 2015). "Slipping Into Eugenics? Nathaniel Comfort on the History Behind CRISPR". Biopolitical Times.
- ^ Comfort, Nathaniel (July 16, 2015). "Can We Cure Genetic Diseases Without Slipping Into Eugenics?". The Nation. Retrieved 2 July 2016.