Cora de Moura Pedreira, the Rockefeller Foundation and the creation of the Human Genetics Laboratory at the Federal University of Bahia (1958-1960)

ABSTRACT

This article aims to analyze the process that created the Human Genetics Laboratory at the Hospital das Clínicas of the Federal University of Bahia, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and the leadership of geneticist Cora de Moura Pedreira. It uses as sources documents collected at the Rockefeller Archive Center, in New York, and news consulted in the “Hemeroteca Digital” of the National Library and at the Documentation Center of the newspaper A Tarde. The method used to interpret the sources is the evidentiary paradigm, by Carlo Ginzburg (1989). The analysis reveals that Cora de Moura Pedreira was part of a Brazilian network of geneticists that aroused the interest of the Rockefeller Foundation in financing an interinstitutional research program in Human Genetics in Brazil and played a leading role in the circulation of knowledge in that field in Bahia, including with the production of original knowledge.

Keywords:
Rockefeller Foundation; genetics; women in science