#  Amalia Sweet 

 

 



   ![Amalia Sweet smiling outside with a green leaf tree in background](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2025-10/Sweet.jpeg?h=a472aab2&itok=wAEeRV59) 

 



 

 email <asweet@g.harvard.edu> 

 



 

*Research Interests: History of biology and biotechnology; history of biochemistry and molecular biology; history of medicine and biomedical research; history of therapeutics; history of disability.*

Amalia Sweet (she/her)is a PhD candidate in the History of Science Department. Her research focuses on the history of biological and biomedical research from the twentieth century to the present. Her master’s thesis traced the history of “junk” DNA, offering a new, earlier origin story for the concept. She has since pursued projects on the history of nucleic acid hybridization—a technique foundational to modern molecular biology—and the Fugu Genome Project—which produced the second complete vertebrate genome.

For her dissertation, Amalia is examining the early development of cancer chemotherapy research in the United States. More broadly, she is interested in the relationship between so-called basic and applied research in the making of biological knowledge, and in the institutional and epistemic configurations that underpin biomedicine.

Amalia’s historical interests stem from her background in biomedical research. With an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, she worked in cancer and infectious disease laboratories throughout and for several years after college. Along her path to the history of science, she also pursued research in disability bioethics and maintains a side interest in the history of disability.

**Previous Degrees:**

B.A., Biochemistry, Smith College;   
M.A., Social Sciences (History Concentration), University of Chicago



 

 

 





 

 

- ## People Categories
    
     [Graduate Students](/graduate_students)
- ## Graduate Research Interests
    
     [Disability History](/graduate-research-interests/disability-history) [History of Biology](/graduate-research-interests/history-biology) [History of Medicine](/graduate-research-interests/history-medicine) [History of Technology](/graduate-research-interests/history-technology)