Mapping do-it-yourself science
AbstractThe emergence of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) science movements is becoming a topic widely discussed in academia and policy, as well as by the general public and the media. While DIY approaches enjoy increasing diffusion even in official research, different social actors frequently talk about them in different ways and circumstances. Interaction and negotiation processes amongst actors (e.g. policy makers and DIY communities) define the premises upon which different conceptualisations of DIY science are deployed.In this paper we offer a framework for analysing the discourse on DIY science.Our study consists of a field rese...
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - January 14, 2019 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Scientific mistakes from the agri-food biotech critics
AbstractCritics of the use of advanced biotechnologies in the agri-food sector ( “New Breeding Techniques”, comprising CRISPR) demand a strict regulation of any such method, even more severe than rules applied to so-called “Genetically Modified Organisms” (i.e. recombinant DNA processes and products). But their position is unwarranted, since it relies on faulty arguments .While most life scientists have always explained that the trigger for regulation should be the singleproduct and its phenotypic traits, opponents insist that the target should be certain biotechprocesses.The antagonists maintain that NBTs are inhe...
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - December 10, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
CRISPR as agent: a metaphor that rhetorically inhibits the prospects for responsible research
AbstractIn 2015, a group of 18 scientists and bioethicists published an editorial inScience calling for “open discourse on the use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to manipulate the human genome” and recommending that steps be taken to strongly discourage “any attempts at germline genome modification” in humans with this powerful new technology. Press reports compared the essay to a letter written by Paul Berg and 10 other scientists in 1974, also published inScience, calling for a voluntary deferral of certain types of recombinant DNA experimentation. A rhetorical analysis of the metaphors in these two documents, and in ...
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - November 13, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Understanding the emotion of shame in transgender individuals – some insight from Kafka
AbstractBoth clinical literature and biographical accounts suggest that many transgender individuals experience shame or have experienced shame at some point in their life for reasons related to their gender identity. In clinical psychology, at least until the 1960s, shame has not received much attention; focus was on guilt and shame was regarded mainly as a ‘by-product’ of guilt. From the 1960s shame has been identified as an emotion not necessarily related to guilt and with unique features, and has been studied in connection with a number of situations, such as domestic abuse, trauma, illness, and sexual orientation....
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - October 1, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
How to do things with metaphors: engineering life as hodgepodge
AbstractThis paper presents a collaboration between social scientists and a chemist exploring the promises for new therapy development at the intersection between synthetic biology and nanotechnology. Drawing from ethnographic studies of laboratories and a recorded discussion between the three authors, we interrogate the metaphors that underpin what Mackenzie (Futures 48:5-122013) has identified as a recursive relationship in the iconography of the life sciences and its infrastructure. Focusing specifically on the use of gene editing techniques in synthetic biology and bio-nanotechnology, we focus our analysis on the key m...
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - September 17, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Constructing future scenarios as a tool to foster responsible research and innovation among future synthetic biologists
AbstractThe emerging field of synthetic biology, the (re-)designing and construction of biological parts, devices and systems for useful purposes, may simultaneously resolve some issues and raise others. In order to develop applications robustly and in the public interest, it is important to organize reflexive strategies of assessment and engagement in early stages of development. Against this backdrop, initiatives related to the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) have also appeared. This paper describes such an initiative: the construction of future scenarios to explore the plausibility and desirability ...
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - September 10, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The governance structure for data access in the DIRECT consortium: an innovative medicines initiative (IMI) project
AbstractBiomedical research projects involving multiple partners from public and private sectors require coherent internal governance mechanisms to engender good working relationships. The DIRECT project is an example of such a venture, funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking (IMI JU). This paper describes the data access policy that was developed within DIRECT to support data access and sharing, via the establishment of a 3-tiered Data Access Committee. The process was intended to allow quick access to data, whilst enabling strong oversight of how data were being accessed and by whom, and any subse...
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - September 4, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Creating life and the media: translations and echoes
AbstractSynthetic biology is the engineering view on biotechnology that ultimately aims at fulfilling the quest of building an artificial cell. From the very first attempts of synthesizing life, this subject has made an impact on the media through, very often, misleading headlines and news. We review here the historical journalistic approach on synthetic biology and related disciplines, from the early twentieth century to the lastest achievements on designing protocells or genome reduction. However, it would be very naive to consider the research community and the media to be unidirectionally linked, with the latter being ...
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - August 20, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Evolutionary tinkering vs. rational engineering in the times of synthetic biology
This article thus proposes a radical vision of synthetic biology through the lens of the engineering metaphor. (Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy)
Source: Life Sciences, Society and Policy - August 12, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
