A Simpler Life: Synthetic Biological Experiments
Cornell University Press, 2021. 174 pages.
First, take a self-consciously self-aggrandizing area of bioengineering, “synthetic biology,” which was said to aim at nothing less than “the design and construction of novel life-forms” (Dan-Cohen, p.12), an apparently clear claim made by those with a platform from which to make it, one that is in …
An estimated 400,000 women around the world are living with breast implants manufactured by the now defunct company Poly Implant Prosthese (PIP) using industrial grade silicone not approved for medical use. The scandal has raised concerns about the regulation of medical devices in Europe and provoked debate about neoliberal approaches to the body. Anthropologyworks points out that establishing who is …
For the last five years Paul Rabinow, Gaymon Bennett and I engaged in collaborative participant-observation in the Berkeley based Synthetic biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC). SynBERC is a consortium of biologists and engineers from UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, Harvard, MIT and Stanford. This Center is funded by National Science Foundation and was the first synthetic biology …
…An argument which Fassin made in his SMA address as well: “The aim of this article is to return to the origins of the concept [of biopolitics] and to
At the National Humanities Center’s excellent On the Human Forum, Paul Rabinow has a new post describing his recent work on synthetic biology–conducted in collaboration with a number of students and colleagues in other disciplines. The project emerged from Rabinow’s work directing the Human Practices Thrust of the Berkeley-based Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC). Rabinow begins his post …