bios news issue 14. lent 2010

BIOSBIOS NewsIssue 14 • Spring 2010

In this issue

Editorial

Welcome from Acting Director of BIOS Sarah Franklin 2

‘Grounding biological and biomedical research – Sino-European collaboration,’ by Ayo Wahlberg 3

‘Law and Neuroscience: a prelude to a philosophy of the future?’ by Joelle Abi-Rached 5

Anders Ljungdahl on Vital Politics and visiting BIOS 7

Research updates 8

Postcards 9

New entries in BIOS 10

Publications and conference presentations 11

Upcoming events 12

BIOS News Issue 14 • Spring 2010 1

BIOS across borders

Although the BIOS Centre is based in London, when reading these pages you will immediately notice that it actually travels all around the world. After the warm welcome from the new acting director of the centre, Sarah Franklin, we are taken back to last summer, when the BIONET project – on reproductive medicine, stem cell research, clinical trials and biobanking, with a focus on Sino-European collaboration – has finally come to an end. In the pages that follow, Joelle Abi-Rached takes us to Acquafredda, where over eighty academics from all over the world gathered to discuss the legal issues associated with neuroscience.

With Anders Ljungdahl, who is visiting the BIOS Centre from Danish School of Education in Aarhus, we remember Vital Politics III, which in mid-September gathered the, BIOS community, along with friends and colleagues from all over the world, to consider the relationship between knowledge and life. At the end of this issue, we meet Claire Marris, our new senior research fellow, who has joined us in October and who, together with new (and not so new) researchers at BIOS, will look at various social and cultural issues around synthetic biology. Also don’t forget to meet our new PhD students, who

introduce themselves and their work in this issue. We also have a research update from Amy Hinterberger, followed by postcards from Kevin Burchell, who left us last October for his new position at Kingston University, and Filippa Lentzos, who gives us a glimpse of the beauty of being a mum. Caitlin Cockerton will also share with us some good news from the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, where she has almost brought her fieldwork to a close. Happy reading to everybody, and Happy 2010 from the editorial board.

2 BIOS News Issue 14 • Spring 2010

Welcome Statementby Sarah Franklin

We began this academic year by hosting several major events alongside our third Vital Politics conference, and inducting the largest ever cohort to the BIOS MSc. As term got under way we hit our usual cruising speed with a steady turnover of reading groups, pub nights, guest lectures and roundtables, fuelled, as ever, by cake. Suddenly we are halfway through the academic year and it is 2010! We are out of the noughties and into the twenteens. With all four members of academic staff concentrating on book manuscript completions for October 2010, and several PhDs aiming to submit in March, as well as the new CSynBI initiative getting underway, it is likely to be a period of serious concentration (not

that we do any other kind in BIOS!). But although we have a ‘lite’ schedule planned for Spring, we have some high quality events to look forward to. We will be welcoming Dr Nick Hopwood to give our first seminar on 28 January and Professor Rayna Rapp to give our Annual BIOS Public lecture on February 25th, by which time daffodils will be bowing down their heads like earnest academic readers of the soil beneath their feet. A little fairy told me we might even be relaunching our blog this Spring, if we can find the missing key.


Grounding biological and biomedical research – Sino-European collaboration by Ayo Wahlberg

Following a marathon of workshops and conferences – Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha, Xi’an, Shenzhen and London – on the topics of reproductive medicine, stem cell research, clinical trials and biobanking, the BIONET project has now come to an end… at least in its original format. The project, which was funded through the European Commission’s Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) with support from the UK Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, has had dual objectives. Firstly, to map out practices of ethical governance in the fields of biological and biomedical research in China, and secondly, on the basis of these findings, to prepare a set of recommendations on best practice in ethical governance aimed specifically at Sino-European research collaborations.

While the project has covered a wide range of topics and fields, in focus have been the ethical issues that arise when advanced biological and biomedical research requires human subjects – either as recipients of experimental therapies or as donors of biological samples. That is to say, individuals, families, communities or entire cohorts need to be recruited into biomedical research. And as a consequence, those scientists and clinicians involved in advanced biomedical research are increasingly required to ensure that their

interaction with potential participants or contributors to a research project is ethically sensitive. Through discussions and debates between the over 300 scientists, ethicists, lawyers, clinicians and social scientists that attended BIONET workshops and conferences, four particular areas of concern related to ethical interaction between researchers and potential or actual research subjects were identified.

Inducement and coercion

When patients or individuals are recruited into medical research this does not take place in an isolated context as the notion of an informed consent signature might suggest. Instead, decisions about whether or not participate in medical research are made in structural, cultural, socio-economic, medical and situational contexts which raises the question of when recruitment turns into undue inducement or even outright coercion. Vulnerability is the concept most often used to indicate that some persons are less able to autonomously consent. For example, as became clear through discussions at BIONET’s workshops, when participation in a clinical trial also means access to basic healthcare for a person who otherwise cannot afford it, it is impossible to rule out inducement. Moreover, since healthcare-related decisions in China almost always had financial consequences the question of who has the ‘authority to consent’ is not always clear cut. The important point being ethical interaction between scientists/clinicians and potential or actual research subjects requires knowledge not just of informed consent procedures but also of the cultural and socio-economic contexts they are recruiting in.

Experimental therapies

With governments, research councils and companies focusing more and more on translational medicine, the race to get from bench to bedside has never been more intense. Biotech shareholders or indeed research councils want basic research into stem

cells or genetics translated into clinical practice in order to ensure financial return and national prestige. This global race has in many ways paved the way for a growing market for experimental therapies such as stem cell therapies. Private clinics throughout the world are taking advantage of the ambiguous status of experimental therapies in many countries and ‘stem cell

‘Empirical research into the realities of ethical governance of research should be encouraged. In the definition of research and funding programmes, social sciences and ethics should be included upstream.’

BIONET Expert Group, November 2009

tourists’ are increasingly travelling long distances to get access to therapies not available in their own countries. Many of these patients suffer from currently ‘untreatable’ conditions are thus perhaps willing to ‘try anything’. Participants at BIONET workshops and conferences argued that this ongoing commercialization of unproven medical claims was a concern that regulators in all countries should address.

Donation of biological samples and biographical information

One of the characteristics of advanced biological and biomedical research today is its reliance on biological samples. Stem cell lines are derived from biological samples taken from human embryos, aborted foetuses, umbilical cords or adults. Genetic research relies on blood or saliva samples which can be used to sequence DNA information from individuals to be used in single gene or genome wide association studies. In this latter case, donors of biological samples can


also donate biographical, lifestyle and/or family medical history information by answering questionnaires. When it comes to sourcing biological samples, distinctions can be made between the degree of risk and discomfort involved. For example, the procurement of human oocytes for stem cell research involves some of the greatest risks for females as collection of eggs can only take place after hormonal stimulation which can have severe health consequences. Donating bone marrow samples is also associated with certain health risks and discomfort. Sourcing can also take place in different contexts, for example, at the BIONET Shanghai workshop, a case was discussed where pregnant women were asked to donate cord blood after having gone into labour. In such contexts, sourcing of a biological sample can be an intrusion. And so, ethical interaction between researchers and research

subjects in situations where biological samples are procured requires respect and sensitivity, and donor safety will always be the prime concern.

Trust

In many cases, individuals will be recruited into medical research by their doctors. As a result, therapeutic misconceptions can be difficult to set straight as many recruited patients consider participation in clinical research as medical treatment which can inevitably lead to false expectations and a breakdown in relationships of trust between doctors, researchers and patients. In BIONET’s Xi’an workshop on clinical trials, Chinese participants suggested that patients, physicians, researchers and health care administrators regularly confused clinical trials with medical care and even that some physicians and investigators seem deliberately to treat clinical trials as medical care in order to ‘sell’ them to potential participants. At the same time, doctor-patient relations are seen to have deteriorated considerably in China due to increasing commercialisation of health care combined with high expectations of modern medicine. In biobanking, it is often a community or section of the general public who will be recruited. If a genetic research project expects to recruit research subjects from a small community, scientists need the trust of community members.

Grounding biological and biomedical research – Sino-European collaboration continued…

What might seem like administrative technicalities on paper (e.g. study inclusion criteria) can have unintended consequences in a community. In BIONET’s Shenzhen workshop on biobanks a case was discussed whereby the setting up of a register for the DNA of some rural communities with a view to investigating sickle cell disease was surrounded by fear of information leaks and possible loss of face in the community (e.g. what if it became known that a family declined to participate?).

An overall conclusion of the BIONET project has been that no matter how laboratory or clinic-based, advanced biological and biomedical research must be grounded into the every day contexts of potential or actual research subjects’ lives. This is because decisions about whether or not to participate in medical research take place in a much broader context than that allowed by the notion of informed consent. This is not to say that informed consent should be abandoned. Participants at BIONET’s workshops argued that informed consent remained a central and important mark of respect towards every individual who participates in medical research. But ethical interaction between researchers and research subjects required much more.

Workshop and conference reports from all of BIONET’s events as well as BIONET’s final report are available at: www.bionet-china.org/


Law and Neuroscience: a prelude to a philosophy of the future?By Joelle Abi-Rached

A high level research conference on ‘Law and Neuroscience: Our Growing Understanding of the Human Brain and its Impact on our Legal System’ took place from October 26 to 31, 2009 in Acquafredda di Maratea, a picturesque costal town in southern Italy. The conference was chaired by Professor Nikolas Rose and organized jointly by the European Science Foundation (ESF), the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) and the European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN) based at the BIOS centre.

Eighty participants from around the globe and from a plethora of disciplines and backgrounds took part in the conference including renowned child psychiatrist-cum-neuro-geneticist, Sir Michael Rutter. Psychiatrists, policy-makers, bioethicists, neuroscientists, social scientists, and lawyers gathered for five days to discuss the legal implications of recent developments in the neurosciences, blessed by the endless sunshine on the Gulf of Policastro.

The structure of the conference was as diverse as the background of its participants. Activities ranged from keynote lectures to short talks, panels, discussions, and poster presentations. The discussion evolved around the following key themes:

• The historical development of the relations between science and law, in terms of knowledge and practice and the extent to which this historical memorabilia can inform the debate;

• The problems and possibilities, promises and pitfalls, of neuroscientific developments on legal practice. What do lawyers want to know from neuroscience and what can neuroscience deliver?

• The potential impact of the neuroimaging revolution on the law: what brain imaging studies can and cannot show, developments in lie-detection and the technical, legal and conceptual problems pertaining to neuroimaging and its ability to detect lies;

• The implications of the neurogenetics of crime and impulsivity for criminal law in terms of screening, identifying and intervening on potential criminals but also in terms of the legal conceptualisation of ‘criminal behaviour’;

• The social and ethical perspectives on the promises and problems of the neurosciences in legal contexts with a special emphasis on the neuroscientific challenges on the concept of ‘individual responsibility’;

• The legal implications of the neuropsychological developments vis-à-vis the identification and reframing of psychopathy and the category of the ‘psychopath’;

• The biopolitics of neuroscientific advances and challenges posed for policy-making, regulation and public engagement.

After five days of intense debate and discussion, many issues, questions and problems emerged. The way they are presented here draw on the concluding remarks by Prof. Rose who chaired the event:

(1) ‘Inter-literacy’ and ‘reflexivity’: In other words, the work each member of a specialized community (neuroscientists and social scientists) needs to do to make the idiosyncratic language of those respective communities intelligible enough for others to understand, in order to be able to meaningfully engage in the debate and reflect on its pertinent issues.

(2) Conceptual questions: what explanatory logic should we use to explain patterns, correlations and relations established in neurogenetics, neuroimaging and the rest of the neurosciences? Are we right in saying that we are witnessing a kind of ‘mutation’ in neurobiological thought towards a much more open system such as, to some extent, social scientists need to engage with the new issues brought about by this epistemological mutation? Can neurobiology manage without a ‘psychology’ or are some old concepts about what goes on in the psychological space either implied or acquired in neurobiological explanations? Is there a need for that

Neuroscientist Tomáš Paus (University of Nottingham, UK and McGill University, Canada) giving a presentation on ‘Imaging adolescent brain: Causes and Consequences’


Law and Neuroscience: a prelude to a philosophy of the future? continued…

‘psychological space’ to supplement ‘neurobiological’ explanations so that mind is not just what brain does?

(3) Ethico-legal questions: Will neurobiology ever be able to resolve the question of responsibility? Perhaps it is more realistic to start shifting towards other ways of thinking of how we hold persons culpable for their actions. Preventive strategies of assessing and intervening in the management of risk seem as important to look at as to what actually happens to the trial.

(4) Role of social scientists: What can social scientists contribute in order to provide neuroscientists with a clearer understanding of the way in which their ‘ecological niche’ has been framed? This is especially relevant to policy makers who are keen in making use of neuroscientific findings in order to solve societal problems.

(5) Subjectivities: Perhaps the most fundamental impact of neurobiological developments will be on the shifting historical ontologies of subjectivities and identities, that is on the kinds of human beings we think we are, which in turn will gradually shape the moral intuitions underlying techno-practices.

(6) Responsibility: What kind of responsibility ought the neurobiological community take for the results when they travel from the laboratory into society? Should they be held responsible for the applications of those

results? Should we take a stand on the current use of neuroimaging or genomics in the courtroom? What kind of responsibility should we take in the move towards early detection and prevention? Should there be a response for those working in the field to the UK law commission paper on expert evidence and expert witness? How do we regulate the application of lie-detection and the evaluation of neuroscientific evidence? Do we have a role to play not only in promulgating a kind of cautionary approach to neuroscience but also in making use of neuroscientific findings for the ‘common good’ or ‘common wealth and health of nations’?

From an optimistic and pragmatic perspective, one can see why this ‘transliteracy’ exercise, albeit premature and inchoate, is necessary. Two recurrent key issues concerned: (i) the need for a common platform to discuss the legal implications of recent advances in the neurosciences, and perhaps more importantly (ii) the need for more empirical research focusing in particular on Europe. This is clearly indispensable if a meaningful discussion of both the implications of such developments and the claims that are being made is to be achieved. Yet as the conference underlined, there is a clear lack of empirical research in Europe compared to the US, thus the urgent need to start archiving European cases where the neurosciences have infiltrated the legal system. Although mapping the European context will be undoubtedly challenging, it is essential for any informed debate on the policy, legal and regulatory aspects of neuroscientific artefacts.

This timely gathering was unquestionably an opportunity to bring to the fore urgent and fundament issues relevant to legal practices. The event was equally timely as there is a need for dialogue and collaborative work on such complex socio-political issues. If one thing is certain, it is the fact that the conference successfully managed to raise those issues to the attention of governments, NGOs, legal experts, social scientists and the neuroscientific community. À suivre.

Further Links: European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN) www.neurosocieties.eu/

European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) www.cost.esf.org/

European Science Foundation (ESF) www.esf.org/

Historian Roger Smith (Lancaster University, UK and Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia) giving the opening lecture on ‘Does new knowledge make a difference? Reflections on the History of Science Law Relations’

Coming to BIOS and Vital Politics III – a visitor’s perspective by Anders Kruse Ljungdalh

BioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSoci-etiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBio-SocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocieties-BioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesBioSocietiesVol. 4, issue 4

This issue of BioSocieties includes several articles that extend the boundaries of social analyses of the life sciences into new and developing arenas. Helena Machado and Susana Dias da Silva examine Portuguese practices of informed consent in collecting DNA samples for forensic use. Tiago Moreira and Paolo Palladino explore a territory that has been only lightly travelled by bio-social theorists: aging. Carrie Friese explores the question of the nature of animal models through an ethnographic study of the practices embodied by cloned endangered animals. Suli Sui describes the practice of genetic counselling in China, and draws out some of its key distinctions from the practices in Europe. Beatrix Rubin analyses the emergence of the belief that the human brain is ‘plastic’ up to and throughout adulthood; and Francisco Ortega examines the rise of the neurodiversity movement in autism.

http://www.journals.cambridge.org/jid_BIO

Out now!


The common denominator in the various streams of BIOS research seems to be the relation between knowledge and life. This relation was investigated from various perspectives during the BIOS conference Vital Politics III held September 16th-19th. The overall themes of the conference were biological citizenship in a global political economy, identities and power in a neuro-age and biopolitics in an age of regenerative and synthetic technologies. The political and cultural aspects of neuroscience, synthetic biology and regenerative medicine were unfolded by members of a wide range of disciplines. For myself, as a newcomer in BIOS, the conference was a great opportunity to get acquainted with the members of BIOS and its associates.

During my stay at LSE (from September 2009 to March 2010) I will be working on my dissertation, which I am writing in English. Thus far it has been remarkably inspiring to participate in the BIOS reading groups on Canguilhem’s Knowledge of Life as well as debates about synthetic biology and theoretical models with which to understand life. The relation between science and life, preeminent in the various research interests of the BIOS members, is important to the theoretical development of my own project.

My research concerns pedagogy and sociology of health. One of the consequences of lifestyle diseases becoming a political, economic and social issue is that hospitals are

PhD student, Danish School of Education – Aarhus University Visiting Research Student – BIOS, LSE

increasingly demanding pedagogical and educational techniques in order to address the problem. Furthermore, diabetes, and more broadly, chronic illnesses and lifestyle diseases, constitute an increasing economic, social and political problem for contemporary governments. This is where the governmentality approach, as well as the ethopolitics of Nikolas Rose, has proven useful; for example, in relation to how patient networks and norms of self-care practices are established. The self-care practices of diabetics thus constitute a point of intersection between political, social, economic, medical, technical and governmental fields – a point where life and the knowledge and life meet.

Research updates


Amy HinterbergerPhD Candidate

‘The Genomics of Difference: Race, Ethnicity and Populations in Biomedicine’

My doctoral research is based on a case study of population genomic initiatives and large-scale biobanking in Canada. Specifically, I am examining how categories of race, ethnicity and populations are used in applied population genomics research and the implications this has for scientific practice, public heath and access to health care in Canada.

As I have entered my fourth year of studies I am currently completing the final chapters of my PhD which look at the politics of ‘genomic inclusion’ relating to indigenous peoples participation in genetics research. The two major intersections of public health and genomics looked at in my thesis are part of contested political landscapes that tie diverse participants to an array of promises and risks. Approached from this perspective, the scientific, and regulatory practices which perform and produce meanings of group difference are much more than scientific constructs. They are part of deeply embedded political, technical and institutional value systems. My thesis seeks to bring into view these contexts and moments of ‘difference politics’ which increasingly shape the meeting

of genomics and public health. In doing so my research excavates histories of population, race and ethnicity in Canada, as well as debates over the nature of human difference in order to rethink the criteria with which we assess the progress of human health genomics.

In 2009, under the title ‘Human Genomic Diversity and Biomedical Practice’, I helped to organise, along with Andrew Smart (Bath Spa) an international symposium which explored key issues such as how human biological diversity is conceived and researched in medicine and whether biomedical genomics research should proceed along ‘race/ethnicity’ classifications. Participants came from the USA, Canada, Iceland, France, the UK and China, and the cross-national similarities and differences proved particularly enlightening.

Apart from a few conference presentations at the ESRC Genomics Network Annual Conference (Cardiff) and Vital Politics III (BIOS, LSE), I am taking the rest of the academic year to focus on revising and completing the thesis.

Postcards to BIOS

iGEM stands for the ‘International Genetically Engineered Machine’ competition and, in a very basic way, I would describe it as the Olympics of synthetic biology. This year, over 1,200 students (in the form of over 110 university teams from around the world) were challenged to “specify, design, build and test simple biological systems made from standard, interchangeable biological parts” (see http://2009.igem.org/Main_Page). Teams work on their project over the course of a few summer months and then take their microbiological machine to the international stage to compete at

MIT for the coveted BioBrick grand prize (that’s me holding it in the picture – the big Lego brick!).

Over the last few months, my PhD research has involved conducting an ethnographic study in which I have followed two elite iGEM teams over the course of their projects in

order to examine questions of knowledge production in synthetic biology as well as the role of this unique undergraduate competition in the development of an emerging field of biotechnology. I have taken a close look into how young synthetic biologists of the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London dream up innovative ideas and, over the course of a few months, turn such ideas into an engineered bacterial machine.

I am delighted to announce that these two teams did exceedingly well on the international stage: Cambridge was the recipient of the competition’s Grand Prize (the big Lego brick) as well as the award for Best Environmental Project, while Imperial College was the recipient of Best Manufacturing Project as well as the tied recipient (with Paris) for Best Human Practices prize. As the embedded social scientist, I played a significant role in helping the Imperial team with their Human Practices project. Lucky me, I had chosen two outstanding teams to follow and have since been nick-named by colleagues in the synthetic biology field as ‘the most decorated prize winner at iGEM’ – quite funny for a social scientist in a genetic engineering competition!

Hello from the iGEM Jamboree at MIT! Caitlin Cockerton, second-year PhD student, returns from fieldwork


Hello from the baby bubbleFilippa Lentzos

Hello from the wonderful baby bubble where Elena is three months old already! She has been growing and making progress at a phenomenal rate. By two months she had doubled her weight since birth and had grown an astounding ten centimetres. She’s now so

big we talk about the time when she was little She gave me her first smile at seven weeks, and is now entertaining us with the most adorable little laughs and giggles. She is particularly fond of bathtime so I’m sending you a photo from the tub with Elena intensely concentrated on daddy and which of the silly faces he will pull next. In the last week she has started to reach out and grab the toys we put in front of her. It’s so amazing to watch her little steps and be part of it all. I can’t wait to introduce her to you. All very best from a very proud mummy!

Kevin BurchellKingston University

As I cycle up and over leafy Kingston Hill towards Kingston University on this bright November morning, I reflect upon – not just three years in BIOS – but fifteen years at LSE as an undergrad, postgrad, research student, tutorial fellow and research fellow. It is not an exaggeration to say that LSE has changed my life, and I am immensely grateful to many of its denizens as well as the institution itself. I am now working on an EPSRC-funded project investigating novel approaches to sustainable behaviour change, that are oriented around social practices and social norms. It’s refreshingly different to what I was doing in BIOS, though the project has its STS aspects, and I hope to see BIOS colleagues at EASST in 2010. It’s also a project for which I have normative as well as analytical passion, which adds a novel dimension. So, farewell, and many thanks to all the BIOSians with whom I have enjoyed intellectual and sociable chit chat, as well as some haphazard attempts to explain the peculiar British psyche and culture!

New entries in BIOS Claire MarrisSenior Research Fellow, responsible for implementing BIOS’s responsibilities under the EPSRC funded Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation (CSynBI).

I obtained a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Bristol in 1984 and a PhD in plant molecular biology from the Open University in 1990, whilst working as a bench scientist at Rothamsted Experimental Station. I then chose to convert to the social studies of science and obtained an MSc from the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University in 1992.

Since then I have been conducting research in STS, focusing on public understandings of the social, political and economic dimensions of science and technology; on public participation in decisions about research orientations; on the use of scientific expertise for decision-making; and on the controversies surrounding agricultural biotechnologies. I have worked in France and the UK and have participated in several European research projects.

I joined BIOS with some trepidation in October. I was excited about the new job but concerned about how I would get on with my new colleagues. Being able to get on with your colleagues is obviously important in any job, but my deeper concern was about whether we would share similar aspirations about how to approach the collaboration between social scientists at BIOS and synthetic biologists at Imperial College. There is a welcome consensus among research institutions and policy makers that social scientists need to be brought in at this very early stage in the development of synthetic biology, but less clarity about what the purpose of this involvement might be. Based on my past experience, I was worried about the extent to which familiar expectations that social scientists could or should help the proponents of this emerging field avoid public controversy – ‘avoid another GM disaster’ – might be prevalent. From my perspective, we cannot and should not try to avoid or even anticipate inevitable tensions between stakeholders with a wide range of interests; ‘upstream public engagement’ should be about opening up research programmes so that the potential impacts and normative implications can be critically assessed, and these assessments incorporated into

the shaping of innovation pathways. Two months into the job, my initial concerns have passed and I feel confident that CSynBI provides an excellent opportunity to construct innovative forms of collaborations between social scientists and synthetic biologists.

Moreover, I was delighted when I arrived to find that BIOS has four outstanding PhD students working on synthetic biology from different perspectives (Caitlin Cockerton, Susanna Finlay, Alex Hamilton and Sara Tocchetti), which means that, with Nikolas Rose, Filippa Lentzos and Sarah Franklin also on board, we now have a vibrant ‘synthetic biology team’ at BIOS.

Susanna Finlay First-year PhD student, BIOS

I first approached university with a conundrum, would I become an Arts student, or a Science student? I had always enjoyed both so, rather than choose I decided to pursue degrees in Anthropology and Biochemistry simultaneously. While this made me somewhat of an anomaly at the time, it opened up a wealth of fascinating research areas. Through my previous postgraduate studies and research positions, I have explored the social dimensions and implications of cytogenetics, genetically modified foods, alternative therapies, models of maternity care, and experimental medicine.

I now find myself starting a PhD on the social impacts of synthetic biology. As with the topics I have previously explored, synthetic biology presents new ways of thinking about ourselves, societies, science and the world in which we live. Using an ethnographic approach, I hope to explore the changing discourses and conceptions of biology and the social impacts and dimensions of synthetic biology.

Alex Hamilton First-year PhD student, BIOS

I began my PhD at BIOS this October and will be working as part of our synthetic biology initiative. I have a BSc in Biology from Mount Allison University, Canada, and an MSc in

Biomedicine, Bioscience and Society from the LSE’s BIOS Centre. Having explored the role of ‘risky bioscience’ in stimulating investment in biosafety and biosecurity during my masters, my PhD research looks to investigate how the emerging field of ‘biorisk forecasting’ stands to shape the research agenda around synthetic biology. As so much of the synthetic biology discourse is shaped by conflicting images of its potential benefits and its potential risks, I consider forecasts of the future to play a critical role in defining the scope of what can and should be expected of this emerging biotechnology, which, in turn, has material implications for how society chooses to develop, govern, and secure synthetic biology in the present.

Sara Tocchetti First-year PhD student, BIOS

While synthetic biology is promoting standardization and more accessibility to genetic engineering technologies and platforms, second hand laboratory material auctions are available online, DNA sequencing and synthesizing prices are dropping, information on how to clone a gene is accessible on the Internet and genetic material is perceived by an increasing number of people as being a public resource. Within this specific context sporadic individuals and groups are setting the basis of what has been defined by themselves and media articles as a more ‘user friendly biology’ practiced by ‘biohackers’, ‘geneticists in the garage’ or ‘DIY biologists’. In particular, some of them claim to be willing to specifically divert genetic engineering technologies from laboratories in universities or from the private industries to reassemble the classical power constellation around genetic engineering technologies in a more democratic fashion.

My research focuses on the practices and discourses within the ‘DIY biology’ or ‘biohacker’ culture, their relations with the concepts and practical changes introduced in the discipline of genetic engineering by synthetic biologists as well as the reception of their activities in the public sphere and private politics of autonomy management.



Publications, lectures and conference presentations by BIOS staff, associates and students

Publications

Abi-Rached, JM (2009) ‘Post-war mental health, wealth and justice.’ Traumatology (special issue on History, Memory and Trauma). 15(3): pp.13-22.

Ajana, B (2009) ‘Review of Serge Gutwirth et al., “Reinventing data protection?”’, Identity in the Information Society. August 2009

Franklin, S (2009) ‘The Genetic Gaze’ in A. Herle (ed.) Assembling Bodies: Art, Science and Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, pp. 32-37 (Exhibition Catalogue).

Franklin, S (2009). ‘40 Years of IVF: 14th February 1969-2009’ (Commemorative Programme for a one day international symposium in Cambridge), London: Nature, 32 pp., with Nick Hopwood and Martin Johnson.

Frazzetto G (2009). ‘Genetics of Behaviour and Psychiatric Disorders: From the Laboratory to Society and Back’, Current Science, 97, 1-9.

Frazzetto G and Anker S (2009). ‘Neuroculture,’ Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10, 815- 821.

Friese, C (2009) ‘Models of cloning, models for the zoo: Rethinking the sociological significance of cloned animals’, BioSocieties 4(4):

Lentzos, F (2009). ‘The Pre-History of BioSecurity: Strategies of Managing Risks to Collective Health’ in Rappert, B. and Gould, C (eds) Biosecurity: Origins, Transformations and Practice. Palgrave.

Presentations

Abi-Rached, JM (2009). ‘Of mice, men and traumatic memories’. Poster presentation at EMBL Workshop on ‘Translating Behaviour: Bridging Clinical and Animal Model Research’. EMBL Heidelberg, Germany. 14-16 November 2009.

Abi-Rached, JM (2009). ‘Post-war mental health, wealth and justice – towards an ethics of post-war mental health.’ Invited seminar presentation at the Department of Philosophy Logic and the Scientific Method, London School of Economics. London, UK. 18 October 2009.

Bell, R (2009). ‘Neuroscience and personality disorder amongst offenders: conceptualizations amongst forensic mental health staff and policy makers’. Poster presentation at EMBL Workshop on ‘Translating Behaviour: Bridging Clinical and Animal Model Research’. EMBL Heidelberg, Germany. 14-16 November 2009.

Franklin, S (2009) ‘Transbiology: a feminist cultural account’, Keynote Lecture, The Scholar and the Feminist XXXIV, ‘The Politics of Reproduction: New Technologies of Life’, 28 February 2009, Barnard College, New York City

Franklin, S (2009) ‘Donation of Human Embryos to Stem Cell research: a view from the UK’, Invited Public Lecture, Ethics Centre of South Australia, Flinders University, Adelaide, 1 September (also presented to the Faculty of Law, University of Technology, Sydney, 8 September).

Franklin, S (2009) ‘In Vitro Veritas? IVF, Stem Cells, and the Reproductive Frontier’, Invited Public Lecture, Hughes Hall Centre for Biomedical Science and Society, 27 October

Franklin, S (2009) ‘After Embryo Transfer’, Conference Paper, Cambridge Interdisciplinary Reproductive Forum, 30 October

Franklin, S (2009) ‘Biological Relatives: kinship after embryo culture’ Stirling Lecture, University of Kent, Canterbury, 17 November

Franklin, S and K Burchell (2009) ‘Public Culture as Professional Science’, Research Seminar, Public Engagement of Science series, LSE, 25 November

Klein, K (2009) ‘Illiberal Governance of hESCR in China: Biopolitics and Embryonic Life in China’ Selected participation at Young Scholars Workshop on ‘Changing Governance in Asia’, International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, NL, 26-27 November 2009.

Rose, H and S Rose (2009). ‘Voodoo Correlations and Internal Phrenology’ at Vital Politics III: LSE, London, 16-19 September.

Rose, N (2009). ‘From Neurotrophic Factors to Social Brain,’ NEURO Final Seminar. Helsinki, Finland, 25-26 August.

Rose, N (2009). ‘Where the field is heading, what the field might need, where ESF should set its priorities, What funding organizations should consider’, concluding remarks at ‘ESF-COST High-Level Research Conference – “Law and Neuroscience”’, Acquafredda di Maratea, Italy, 26-31 October 2009.

Upcoming BIOS events

BIOS • The London School

of Economics and Political

Science • Houghton Street

London WC2A 2AE

Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6998

Fax: +44 (0)20 7955 6565

www.lse.ac.uk/collections/BIOS/

During term time, the BIOS research seminar series and BIOS reading group sessions are held regularly on Thursdays and Wednesdays respectively. The Thursday seminar series feature invited speakers to discuss their research on various social and ethical aspects of the life sciences and biomedicine, while the reading group facilitates discussion around a series of topics that are of interest to persons associated with BIOS or who have an interest in the life sciences throughout the LSE and beyond.


Dates for your calendar January – March 2010

28 January 2010 Dr Nick Hopwood, BIOS seminar 5-7 pm Room TBD

The London School of Economics and Political Science

25 February 2010 Professor Rayna Rapp, Annual BIOS Public lecture 6 pm, Wolfson Theatre

For further detail please check our website (www.lse.ac.uk/collections/BIOS/)

BIOS Reading Group The Reading Group will be meeting one Wednesday per month from 1-3pm. Check the BIOS website for an updated Lent Term programme, room details and reading list.

MSc SO455 Key Issues in Bioscience, Biomedicine and Society will meet on Thursday from 9-10am in room H216, between the first and fifth week of the Term, and from 10-1am in room S211 for the remaning weeks..

BIOS Roundtables BIOS roundtables will continue in the Lent Term aiming at exploring shared interests in the BIOS community, and to address problems, issues, and concerns encountered. See the bulletin board for dates and to sign up!

BIOS Visitors’ Forum Because there just aren’t enough Wednesdays in a term, the BIOS Visitors’ Forum has been instituted as a new way for visitors to informally present and discuss their work, to and with some of the other BIOS members. The forum will be organised on an ad hoc basis, but will normally take place as a ‘brown bag lunch’ event, on a Wednesday when there is already a roundtable or reading group happening. Keep an eye on your inbox for more details!

bios news issue 14. lent 2010

Documents

bios centre

bios community

bios msc

bios news issue

new entries

new position

new researchers

new acting director