Craft in Biomedical Research (eBook)

This book explores the new ways in which biology is becoming technology. The revolutionary iPS cell technology has made it possible to turn human skin and blood cells into pluripotent stem cells, thus providing an unprecedented opportunity to study the pathophysiology of diseases, understand human developmental biology, and generate new therapies. Drawing from a rich ethnographic study, Meskus traces the making of the iPS cell technology through the perspectives of clinical translation, laboratory experimentation, and tissue donation by voluntary patients. Discussing non-human agency, the embodied and affective basis of knowledge production, and the material politics of science, the book develops the idea of an instrumentality-care continuum as a fundamental dynamic of biomedical craft. This continuum, Meskus argues, opens up a novel perspective to the commercialization and industrial-scale appropriation of human biology, and thereby to the future of ethical biomedical research. 

Mianna Meskus is Associate Professor at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her research explores technoscientific shaping of humanity from various perspectives, including reproduction, gender, biomedicine, politics and ethics.

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This book will present a multi-sited ethnography examining the latest 'revolution' in stem cell research and its societal, ethical, and political implications. The author examines the nexus between mundane laboratory work and ethical practices concerning research in stem cells, and patient experiences of the donation of cells for the development of new drugs and treatment techniques. In doing so the book reveals the politicization and commercialization of human biology and regulatory processes.