Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Chair for the History of Science

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Off-term period Feb 20th and Mar20th 2019, 3-4 p.m.

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Vita

• since October 2014: wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Chair for the History of Science (Prof. te Heesen), Humboldt-University of Berlin
• March 2016: Visiting Fellow, Department of History, Princeton University
• February-April 2015: Research Fellow, Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
• Summer/Fall 2013 Research Fellow at Centre Cavaillès, École Normale Supérieure Paris, funded by German Academic Exchange Service and Maison des Sciences de l'Homme
• since June 2011 Research Fellow at the Institut für Philosophie, Literatur-, Wissenschafts- und Technikgeschichte of Technische Universität Berlin
• 2010 Research Fellow, ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis) at the University of Exeter
• UK 2009 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin October 2008 Doctorate at Institute of Biology of Humboldt University, Berlin 
• 2005 - 2008 PhD-student in the Department of Microbial Physiology at Institute of Biology of Humboldt University, Berlin 
• 1999 – 2004 Studies in philosophy and biology (M.A.) at Humboldt University, Berlin and Université de Nantes, France

Research Interest 

• History and epistemology of the life sciences in the 20th century, especially classification and molecular biologies beyond genetics (membranes, 'molecular machines').
• Temporality and historiography of the sciences

Currents Projects

• Handbook science  - Ageing, tempo and temporality in the history of the 20th century life sciences
• Membranes and „molecular machines“ – Another history of the molecular life sciences, c. 1970 – 1990

Publications

1. History and Philosophy of Science

• Grote M. (2018). Petri dish versus Winogradsky column: a longue durée perspective on purity and diversity in microbiology, 1880s–1980s. Topical Collection "New Perspectives in the History of the Life Sciences", ed. R. Meunier and K. Nickelsen, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 40, 11.
• Grote M. (2016), Das Patchwork der Mikroben. Bio-Technologien, Leben und Wissenschaft jenseits der großen Erzählungen. N. Güttler, M. Pratschke, M. Stadler (Hgg.), Nach Feierabend. Zürcher Jahrbuch für Wissensgeschichte 12, Wissen ca. 1980, 35-51.
• Grote M. & Keuck L. (2015). Conference report “Stoffwechsel. Histories of metabolism”, workshop organized by Mathias Grote at Technische Universität Berlin, November 28–29th, 2014. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 37: 210-218.
• Grote M. (2013a). Vintage physiology. Otto Warburgs „Labor-Kochbücher” und Apparaturen. NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 21: 171-185.
• Grote M. (2013b). Purple matter, membranes and 'molecular pumps' in rhodopsin research (1960s-1980s). Journal for the History of Biology 46:331-368.
• Grote M. (2011). Jeewanu, or the 'particles of life. The approach of Krishna Bahadur in 20th century origin of life research. Journal of Biosciences 36(4), 563-570.
• Grote M. & O'Malley M.A. (2011). Enlightening the lifesciences: the history of halobacterial and microbial rhodopsin research. FEMS Microbiology Reviews 35(6): 1082-1099.
• Grote M. (2010). Surfaces of action. Cells and membranes in electrochemistry and the life sciences, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Biology and the Biomedical Sciences 41: 183-193.
• Grote M. (2008). Hybridizing bacteria, crossing methods, cross-checking arguments: The transition from episomes to plasmids (1961-1969), History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 30: 407-430.
• Grote, M. (2007). Die „Kräfte des Organischen“. Transformationen des Naturbildes in C.F. Kielmeyers Karlsschulrede, Verhandlungen zur Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie 13: 165-175.

Special Issues / Edited Volume

• Grote, Mathias und Max Stadler (2015), Surfaces in the History of Modern Sciences: Inscribing, Separating, Enclosing. Topical Section/Introduction, Science in Context 28, Issue 3.
• Grote M. & Stadler M. (2011), Membranes Surfaces Boundaries. Interstices in the History of Science, Technology and Culture. Preprint 420, Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (print/online).

Book Chapters

• Grote M. (forthcoming 2017). Petri dish. In: Bauer S., Schlünder M., Rentetzi M., eds., Boxes in Action. Manchester: Mattering Press. [a short history of the Petri dish]
• Grote M. (2014). From enzymes to 'molecular machines': Materiality in research on rhodopsins, 1970s:. In: Reinhardt C. & Klein U., eds., Objects of chemical inquiry, Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications, 343-368
• Grote M. (2011). Jeewanu. In: Azzouni S., Brandt C., Gausemeier B., Kursell J., Schmidgen H. & Wittman B., eds., Eine Naturgeschichte für das 21. Jahrhundert: hommage à, zu Ehren von, in honor of Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. Berlin: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 222-224 (new edition 2014, Alpheus Verlag, Berlin)

Contributions to blogs

• Grote, M. (2018), The Politics of the Handbook, History of Knowledge, July 31, 2018, https://historyofknowledge.net/2018/07/31/politics-of-the-handbook/.
• Grote, M. (2018), Who Has Been to Ames, Iowa? Or: Handbooks as an Unappreciated Dimension of Science. History of Knowledge, May 25, 2018 https://historyofknowledge.net/2018/05/25/who-has-been-to-ames-iowa-or-handbooks-as-an-unappreciated-dimension-of-science/
• Grote, M. (2018), Why Manuals and Handbooks? Why Now?, History of Knowledge, May 2, 2018, https://historyofknowledge.net/2018/05/02/why-manuals-and-handbooks-why-now/
• Grote, M. (2018), Petri's dish vs. Winogradsky's column - shifting boundaries between purity and mixture of microbes. Small things considered [Blog der American Society of Microbiology].
• Grote, M. (2016), Take your kids to the microbes - Micropia, the world's only microbe zoo in Amsterdam. Small things considered [Blog der American Society of Microbiology].

Selected other publications

• Grote, M. (2018), Wissenschaftsgeschichte als Handbuchwissenschaft, Sammelrezension zu M. Sommer, S. Müller-Wille und C. Reinhardt (Hg., 2017), Handbuch Wissenschaftsgeschichte und S. Bauer, T. Heinemann, T. Lemke (Hg., 2017), Science and Technology Studies – Klassische Positionen und aktuelle Perspektiven, NTM. Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, 1-11, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00048-018-0187-x
• Grote, Mathias (2016), Take your kids to the microbes - Micropia, the world's only microbe zoo in Amsterdam. Small things considered [blog of the American Society of Microbiology]
• Grote, Mathias (2015), What could the 'longue durée' mean for the history of modern sciences? Working Paper, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris  [FMSH-WP-2015-98; online, open access, in English]
• Grote, Mathias (2015), Khorana, Har Gobind, eLS Encyclopedia of the Life Sciences, DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0002845 [Lexikonartikel/biographical article, online publication]
• Grote M. (2013). Rezension: Biomedical Computing. Digitizing Life in the United States von Joseph C. November. Biology, Computing, and the History of Molecular Sequencing. From Proteins to DNA, 1945–2000 von Miguel García-Sancho, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 36:200-202
• Grote M. & Méthot P.O. (2012).  Michel Morange: La vie, l’évolution et l’histoire.Metascience 21, 507-508 
• Grote M. & O'Malley M.A. (2010). History of science is good for you. Nature Reviews Microbiology 8: 752

2. Life Sciences 

Journal articles

• Grote, M., Engelhard M. & Hegemann , P. (2014). Of ion pumps, sensors and channels – Perspectives on microbial rhodopsins between science and history (Review). Biochimica et Biophysica Acta Bioenergetics 1837, 533-545.
• Grote M., Polyhach Y., Jeschke G., Steinhoff H.-J., Schneider E. and Bordignon E. (2009). Transmembrane signaling in the maltose ABC transporter MalFGK2-E: Periplasmic MalF-P2 loop communicates substrate availability to the ATP-bound MalK dimer, Journal of Biological Chemistry 284: 17521-17526.
• Grote M., Bordignon E., Polyhach Y., Jeschke G., Steinhoff H.-J. and Schneider E. (2008). A comparative EPR study of the nucleotide-binding domains’ catalytic cycle in the assembled maltose ABC-importer. Biophysical Journal 95: 2924-2938.