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Falkenberg R, Fochler M. Innovation in Technology Instead of Thinking? Assetization and Its Epistemic Consequences in Academia. SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & HUMAN VALUES 2024; 49:105-130. [PMID: 38046187 PMCID: PMC10691956 DOI: 10.1177/01622439221140003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/05/2023]
Abstract
This paper draws on the notion of the asset to better understand the role of innovative research technologies in researchers' practices and decisions. Faced with both the need to accumulate academic capital to make a living in academia and with many uncertainties about the future, researchers must find ways to anticipate future academic revenues. We illustrate that innovative research technologies provide a suitable means for doing so: First, because they promise productivity through generating interesting data and hence publications. Second, because they allow a signaling of innovativeness in contexts where research is evaluated, even across disciplinary boundaries. As such, enrolling innovative research technologies as assets allows researchers to bridge partly conflicting valuations of productivity and innovativeness they are confronted with. However, the employment of innovative technologies in anticipation of future academic revenues is not always aligned with what researchers value epistemically. Nevertheless, considerations about potential future academic revenues derived from innovative research technologies sometimes seem to override particular epistemic valuations. Illustrating these dynamics, we show that processes of assetization in academia can have significant epistemic consequences which are important to unpack.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ruth Falkenberg
- Department of Science and Technology Studies, University of Vienna, Austria
- Research Platform Responsible Research and Innovation in Academic Practice, University of Vienna, Austria
| | - Maximilian Fochler
- Department of Science and Technology Studies, University of Vienna, Austria
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2
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Aarden E. Infrastructuring European scientific integration: Heterogeneous meanings of the European biobanking infrastructure BBMRI-ERIC. SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE 2023; 53:572-598. [PMID: 37306097 PMCID: PMC10363945 DOI: 10.1177/03063127231162629] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
While transnational research infrastructure projects long preceded the formal integration process that created the European Union, their advancement is an increasingly central part of EU research policy and of European integration in general. This paper analyses the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure-European Research Infrastructure Consortium (BBMRI-ERIC) as a recent example of institutionalized scientific collaboration in Europe that has formally been established as part of EU science policy. BBMRI-ERIC, a network of European biobanks, is expected to contribute to both European science and European integration. Yet its achievements in these domains are interpreted differently by various actors involved. This paper draws on STS conceptualizations of infrastructures as relational, experimental, and promissory assemblages. These support the formulation of a working definition of research infrastructures that in turn helps to explore the heterogeneous meanings attributed to BBMRI-ERIC. The paper describes the creation of this distributed European research infrastructure, and divergent understandings of what it means for BBMRI-ERIC to be distributed, to be European and to be a research infrastructure. This analysis demonstrates how building a research infrastructure is also an effort to define what it means to be European-a process in which what is European about science and what science can do for Europe is continuously (re-)imagined, contested and negotiated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Erik Aarden
- University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria
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3
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Pinel C. When more data means better results: Abundance and scarcity in research collaborations in epigenetics. SOCIAL SCIENCES INFORMATION. INFORMATION SUR LES SCIENCES SOCIALES 2020; 59:35-58. [PMID: 32255899 PMCID: PMC7136073 DOI: 10.1177/0539018419895456] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
Drawing upon ethnographic findings from an epigenetics research laboratory in the United Kingdom, this paper explores practices of research collaborations in the field of epigenetics, and epigenomics research consortia in particular. I demonstrate that research consortia are key scientific infrastructures that enable the aggregation of masses of data deemed necessary for the production of results and the fostering of epistemic value. Building on STS scholarship on value production, and the concept of asset, I show that the production of valuable research within epigenomics research consortia rests on the active organisation and management of abundance and scarcity. It involves shaping and standardising the masses of data gathered in consortia, while it also entails research teams enclosing their data within their laboratories' walls. As they do so, research teams construct data into scarce and monopolised assets, which they can put to productive use in collaborative endeavours against a revenue. In addition to contributing empirical and critical insights into the ways epigenetics knowledge is formed and negotiated in specific research contexts, this paper offers conceptual tools to examine and problematise knowledge production practices in data-intensive research more broadly. In particular, it points out that while contemporary big biology is marked by the generalised imperative to 'share' data and 'open' science, collaborative endeavours within research consortia are built around forms of exclusions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Clémence Pinel
- Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
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Milne R. The rare and the common: scale and the genetic imaginary in Alzheimer's disease drug development. NEW GENETICS AND SOCIETY 2019; 39:101-126. [PMID: 32256202 PMCID: PMC7077363 DOI: 10.1080/14636778.2019.1637718] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2018] [Accepted: 06/03/2019] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
In this paper I examine how the promissory value of genetics is constituted through processes of scale and scaling, focussing on the relationship between "rare" and "common" forms of disease. I highlight the bodies and spaces involved in the production of post-genomic knowledge and technologies of Alzheimer's disease and the development of new disease-modifying drugs. I focus on the example of the development of a monoclonal antibody therapy for Alzheimer's disease. I argue that the process of therapeutic innovation, from genetic studies and animal models to phase III clinical trials, reflects the persistent importance of a genetic imaginary and a mutually constitutive relationship between the rare and the common in in shaping visions of Alzheimer's disease medicine. Approaching this relationship as a question of scale, I suggest the importance of attending to how and where genomic knowledge is "scaled" or proves resistant to scaling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Richard Milne
- Wellcome Genome Campus – Society and Ethics Research Group, Cambridge, UK
- Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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Maxson Jones K, Ankeny RA, Cook-Deegan R. The Bermuda Triangle: The Pragmatics, Policies, and Principles for Data Sharing in the History of the Human Genome Project. JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 2018; 51:693-805. [PMID: 30390178 PMCID: PMC7307446 DOI: 10.1007/s10739-018-9538-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
The Bermuda Principles for DNA sequence data sharing are an enduring legacy of the Human Genome Project (HGP). They were adopted by the HGP at a strategy meeting in Bermuda in February of 1996 and implemented in formal policies by early 1998, mandating daily release of HGP-funded DNA sequences into the public domain. The idea of daily sharing, we argue, emanated directly from strategies for large, goal-directed molecular biology projects first tested within the "community" of C. elegans researchers, and were introduced and defended for the HGP by the nematode biologists John Sulston and Robert Waterston. In the C. elegans community, and subsequently in the HGP, daily sharing served the pragmatic goals of quality control and project coordination. Yet in the HGP human genome, we also argue, the Bermuda Principles addressed concerns about gene patents impeding scientific advancement, and were aspirational and flexible in implementation and justification. They endured as an archetype for how rapid data sharing could be realized and rationalized, and permitted adaptation to the needs of various scientific communities. Yet in addition to the support of Sulston and Waterston, their adoption also depended on the clout of administrators at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the UK nonprofit charity the Wellcome Trust, which together funded 90% of the HGP human sequencing effort. The other nations wishing to remain in the HGP consortium had to accommodate to the Bermuda Principles, requiring exceptions from incompatible existing or pending data access policies for publicly funded research in Germany, Japan, and France. We begin this story in 1963, with the biologist Sydney Brenner's proposal for a nematode research program at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at the University of Cambridge. We continue through 2003, with the completion of the HGP human reference genome, and conclude with observations about policy and the historiography of molecular biology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathryn Maxson Jones
- Department of History, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
- MBL McDonnell Foundation Scholar, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA.
| | - Rachel A Ankeny
- School of Humanities, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
| | - Robert Cook-Deegan
- School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State University, Barrett & O'Connor Washington Center, Washington, D.C., USA
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Stevens H. Globalizing Genomics: The Origins of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration. JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 2018; 51:657-691. [PMID: 28986915 DOI: 10.1007/s10739-017-9490-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Genomics is increasingly considered a global enterprise - the fact that biological information can flow rapidly around the planet is taken to be important to what genomics is and what it can achieve. However, the large-scale international circulation of nucleotide sequence information did not begin with the Human Genome Project. Efforts to formalize and institutionalize the circulation of sequence information emerged concurrently with the development of centralized facilities for collecting that information. That is, the very first databases build for collecting and sharing DNA sequence information were, from their outset, international collaborative enterprises. This paper describes the origins of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration between GenBank in the United States, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory Databank, and the DNA Database of Japan. The technical and social groundwork for the international exchange of nucleotide sequences created the conditions of possibility for imagining nucleotide sequences (and subsequently genomes) as a "global" objects. The "transnationalism" of nucleotide sequence was critical to their ontology - what DNA sequences came to be during the Human Genome Project was deeply influenced by international exchange.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hallam Stevens
- School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 14 Nanyang Drive #05-07, Singapore, 637332, Singapore.
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Morrison M. "A good collaboration is based on unique contributions from each side": assessing the dynamics of collaboration in stem cell science. LIFE SCIENCES, SOCIETY AND POLICY 2017; 13:7. [PMID: 28474272 PMCID: PMC5418168 DOI: 10.1186/s40504-017-0053-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2017] [Accepted: 04/26/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
The rise of 'big biology' is bringing academic and industrial scientists together in large consortia to address translational challenges in the life sciences. In order to assess the impact of this change, this paper examines the existing norms and styles of collaboration in one high profile translational domain; stem cell research. Data is drawn from qualitative interviews with academic and industry scientists working in a large European stem cell research project. Respondents discussed what they perceived as the main benefits and risks of collaborative research, what styles of collaboration they were familiar with, and what collaborative work in stem cell science normally involves. A wide range of materials, data, and expertise can be exchanged during collaborative work. Informal collaborations are governed by an ethos of reciprocity and mediated by trust while formal project agreements can provide a safe space for sharing between unfamiliar partners. These characteristics make stem cell research well suited to pre-competitive public-private ventures but translation of new products to market may be more challenging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Morrison
- Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX), Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Ewert House, Ewert Place, Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 7DD, UK.
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Niemi SM, Davies GF. Animal Research, the 3Rs, and the “Internet of Things”: Opportunities and Oversight in International Pharmaceutical Development. ILAR J 2017; 57:246-253. [DOI: 10.1093/ilar/ilw033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2016] [Revised: 10/13/2016] [Accepted: 10/19/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
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Ankeny RA, Leonelli S. Repertoires: A post-Kuhnian perspective on scientific change and collaborative research. STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 2016; 60:18-28. [PMID: 27938718 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2016.08.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2016] [Revised: 08/18/2016] [Accepted: 08/29/2016] [Indexed: 05/23/2023]
Abstract
We propose a framework to describe, analyze, and explain the conditions under which scientific communities organize themselves to do research, particularly within large-scale, multidisciplinary projects. The framework centers on the notion of a research repertoire, which encompasses well-aligned assemblages of the skills, behaviors, and material, social, and epistemic components that a group may use to practice certain kinds of science, and whose enactment affects the methods and results of research. This account provides an alternative to the idea of Kuhnian paradigms for understanding scientific change in the following ways: (1) it does not frame change as primarily generated and shaped by theoretical developments, but rather takes account of administrative, material, technological, and institutional innovations that contribute to change and explicitly questions whether and how such innovations accompany, underpin, and/or undercut theoretical shifts; (2) it thus allows for tracking of the organization, continuity, and coherence in research practices which Kuhn characterized as 'normal science' without relying on the occurrence of paradigmatic shifts and revolutions to be able to identify relevant components; and (3) it requires particular attention be paid to the performative aspects of science, whose study Kuhn pioneered but which he did not extensively conceptualize. We provide a detailed characterization of repertoires and discuss their relationship with communities, disciplines, and other forms of collaborative activities within science, building on an analysis of historical episodes and contemporary developments in the life sciences, as well as cases drawn from social and historical studies of physics, psychology, and medicine.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rachel A Ankeny
- School of Humanities, Napier 4th Floor, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005 SA, Australia.
| | - Sabina Leonelli
- Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology & Exeter Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences (Egenis), University of Exeter, Byrne House, St Germans Road, EX4 4PJ Exeter, UK.
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10
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11
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Davies GF, Greenhough BJ, Hobson-West P, Kirk RGW, Applebee K, Bellingan LC, Berdoy M, Buller H, Cassaday HJ, Davies K, Diefenbacher D, Druglitrø T, Escobar MP, Friese C, Herrmann K, Hinterberger A, Jarrett WJ, Jayne K, Johnson AM, Johnson ER, Konold T, Leach MC, Leonelli S, Lewis DI, Lilley EJ, Longridge ER, McLeod CM, Miele M, Nelson NC, Ormandy EH, Pallett H, Poort L, Pound P, Ramsden E, Roe E, Scalway H, Schrader A, Scotton CJ, Scudamore CL, Smith JA, Whitfield L, Wolfensohn S. Developing a Collaborative Agenda for Humanities and Social Scientific Research on Laboratory Animal Science and Welfare. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0158791. [PMID: 27428071 PMCID: PMC4948886 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0158791] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2016] [Accepted: 06/22/2016] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Improving laboratory animal science and welfare requires both new scientific research and insights from research in the humanities and social sciences. Whilst scientific research provides evidence to replace, reduce and refine procedures involving laboratory animals (the '3Rs'), work in the humanities and social sciences can help understand the social, economic and cultural processes that enhance or impede humane ways of knowing and working with laboratory animals. However, communication across these disciplinary perspectives is currently limited, and they design research programmes, generate results, engage users, and seek to influence policy in different ways. To facilitate dialogue and future research at this interface, we convened an interdisciplinary group of 45 life scientists, social scientists, humanities scholars, non-governmental organisations and policy-makers to generate a collaborative research agenda. This drew on methods employed by other agenda-setting exercises in science policy, using a collaborative and deliberative approach for the identification of research priorities. Participants were recruited from across the community, invited to submit research questions and vote on their priorities. They then met at an interactive workshop in the UK, discussed all 136 questions submitted, and collectively defined the 30 most important issues for the group. The output is a collaborative future agenda for research in the humanities and social sciences on laboratory animal science and welfare. The questions indicate a demand for new research in the humanities and social sciences to inform emerging discussions and priorities on the governance and practice of laboratory animal research, including on issues around: international harmonisation, openness and public engagement, 'cultures of care', harm-benefit analysis and the future of the 3Rs. The process outlined below underlines the value of interdisciplinary exchange for improving communication across different research cultures and identifies ways of enhancing the effectiveness of future research at the interface between the humanities, social sciences, science and science policy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gail F. Davies
- Department of Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
| | - Beth J Greenhough
- School of Geography and the Environment and Keble College, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Pru Hobson-West
- Centre for Applied Bioethics, School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
| | - Robert G. W. Kirk
- Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM), Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
| | - Ken Applebee
- Biological Services, Health Schools, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
| | | | - Manuel Berdoy
- Biomedical Services, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Henry Buller
- Department of Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
| | - Helen J. Cassaday
- School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, United Kingdom
| | - Keith Davies
- Joint Biological Services, College of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | | | - Tone Druglitrø
- TIK – Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | | | - Carrie Friese
- Department of Sociology, London School of Economics, London, United Kingdom
| | - Kathrin Herrmann
- Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology Department of Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Amy Hinterberger
- Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom
| | | | - Kimberley Jayne
- Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
| | - Adam M. Johnson
- Biological Services Facility (BSF), Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
| | - Elizabeth R. Johnson
- Department of Environmental Studies, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, United States of America
| | - Timm Konold
- Animal Sciences Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency Weybridge, Addlestone, United Kingdom
| | - Matthew C. Leach
- School of Agriculture, Food & Rural Development, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
| | - Sabina Leonelli
- Exeter Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences (Egenis) & Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
| | - David I. Lewis
- School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
| | - Elliot J. Lilley
- Research Animals Department, Science Group, RSPCA, Wilberforce Way, Southwater, West Sussex, United Kingdom
| | - Emma R. Longridge
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Swindon, United Kingdom
| | - Carmen M. McLeod
- Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
| | - Mara Miele
- School of Planning and Geography, College of Art, Humanities and Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Nicole C. Nelson
- Department of the History of Science, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
| | | | - Helen Pallett
- School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
| | - Lonneke Poort
- Faculteit of Law, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Pandora Pound
- School for Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
| | - Edmund Ramsden
- School of History, Queen Mary, University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Emma Roe
- Department of Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
| | - Helen Scalway
- Honorary Research Associate, Geography Department, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Astrid Schrader
- Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
| | - Chris J. Scotton
- Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, United Kingdom
| | | | - Jane A. Smith
- Faculty of Science, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
| | - Lucy Whitfield
- Named Veterinary Surgeons Group, Royal Veterinary College, London, United Kingdom
| | - Sarah Wolfensohn
- School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom
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Fukushima M. Constructing failure in big biology: The socio-technical anatomy of Japan's Protein 3000 Project. SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE 2016; 46:7-33. [PMID: 26983170 DOI: 10.1177/0306312715612146] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
This study focuses on the 5-year Protein 3000 Project launched in 2002, the largest biological project in Japan. The project aimed to overcome Japan's alleged failure to contribute fully to the Human Genome Project, by determining 3000 protein structures, 30 percent of the global target. Despite its achievement of this goal, the project was fiercely criticized in various sectors of society and was often branded an awkward failure. This article tries to solve the mystery of why such failure discourse was prevalent. Three explanatory factors are offered: first, because some goals were excluded during project development, there was a dynamic of failed expectations; second, structural genomics, while promoting collaboration with the international community, became an 'anti-boundary object', only the absence of which bound heterogeneous domestic actors; third, there developed an urgent sense of international competition in order to obtain patents on such structural information.
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Aicardi C, García-Sancho M. Towards future archives and historiographies of 'big biology'. STUDIES IN HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGICAL AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES 2016; 55:41-44. [PMID: 26476813 DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.09.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Christine Aicardi
- Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom.
| | - Miguel García-Sancho
- Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, University of Edinburgh, Old Surgeons' Hall, High School Yards, Edinburgh EH1 1LZ, United Kingdom.
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Cassidy A. 'Big science' in the field: experimenting with badgers and bovine TB, 1995-2015. HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE LIFE SCIENCES 2015; 37:305-25. [PMID: 26141169 PMCID: PMC4552774 DOI: 10.1007/s40656-015-0072-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2015] [Accepted: 06/12/2015] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
Since wild badgers were first connected with outbreaks of bovine TB (bTB) in UK cattle herds in the early 1970s, the question of whether to cull them to control infections in cattle has been the subject of a protracted public and policy controversy. Following the recommendation of Prof. John Krebs that a "scientifically based experimental trial" be carried out to test the effectiveness of badger culling, the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT) was commissioned by Government in 1998. One of the largest field experiments ever conducted in the UK, the RBCT sought to recreate the conditions of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) across approximately 3000 km(2) of the South West of England. Despite widespread expectations that the RBCT would provide the necessary evidence to resolve the controversy, its findings have instead been widely contested and reinterpreted, while arguments over badger culling have become increasingly polarised. This paper will investigate the complexities of field experimental knowledge by following the story of the RBCT from this initial proposal, through processes of research design, implementation, analysis, interpretation and reinterpretation of the findings by multiple actors. It asks what kind of experiment the RBCT actually was, and examines how it has contributed to the protracted controversy over whether to cull badgers in order to control bTB in cattle. Finally, it will explore the wider implications of this case for contemporary debates over the contribution that RCTs can make to formulating public policy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angela Cassidy
- Department of History, King's College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, UK,
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Abstract
How effectively communities of scientists come together and co-operate is crucial both to the quality of research outputs and to the extent to which such outputs integrate insights, data and methods from a variety of fields, laboratories and locations around the globe. This essay focuses on the ensemble of material and social conditions that makes it possible for a short-term collaboration, set up to accomplish a specific task, to give rise to relatively stable communities of researchers. We refer to these distinctive features as repertoires, and investigate their development and implementation across three examples of collaborative research in the life sciences. We conclude that whether a particular project ends up fostering the emergence of a resilient research community is partly determined by the degree of attention and care devoted by researchers to material and social elements beyond the specific research questions under consideration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabina Leonelli
- Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology & Exeter Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences (Egenis), University of Exeter, Byrne House, St Germans Road, EX4 4PJ Exeter, UK;
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Leonelli S. What Difference Does Quantity Make? On the Epistemology of Big Data in Biology. BIG DATA & SOCIETY 2014; 1:10.1177/2053951714534395. [PMID: 25729586 PMCID: PMC4340542 DOI: 10.1177/2053951714534395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 58] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Abstract
Is big data science a whole new way of doing research? And what difference does data quantity make to knowledge production strategies and their outputs? I argue that the novelty of big data science does not lie in the sheer quantity of data involved, but rather in (1) the prominence and status acquired by data as commodity and recognised output, both within and outside of the scientific community; and (2) the methods, infrastructures, technologies, skills and knowledge developed to handle data. These developments generate the impression that data-intensive research is a new mode of doing science, with its own epistemology and norms. To assess this claim, one needs to consider the ways in which data are actually disseminated and used to generate knowledge. Accordingly, this paper reviews the development of sophisticated ways to disseminate, integrate and re-use data acquired on model organisms over the last three decades of work in experimental biology. I focus on online databases as prominent infrastructures set up to organise and interpret such data; and examine the wealth and diversity of expertise, resources and conceptual scaffolding that such databases draw upon. This illuminates some of the conditions under which big data need to be curated to support processes of discovery across biological subfields, which in turn highlights the difficulties caused by the lack of adequate curation for the vast majority of data in the life sciences. In closing, I reflect on the difference that data quantity is making to contemporary biology, the methodological and epistemic challenges of identifying and analyzing data given these developments, and the opportunities and worries associated to big data discourse and methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabina Leonelli
- Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology & Exeter Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences (Egenis), University of Exeter, UK,
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17
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Global data for local science: Assessing the scale of data infrastructures in biological and biomedical research. BIOSOCIETIES 2013. [DOI: 10.1057/biosoc.2013.23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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18
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