Determining discourse on bio-objects

Can you begin by outlining the principal aims and objects of your research into bio-objects?

TH: Our focus, as you mention, is bio-objects – loosely defi ned as bio-medically produced life forms that challenge juridical, political, ethical and cultural ordering systems. However, we are specifi cally interested in the processes through which these objects are formed. Thus, we trace – and this is a highly collaborative effort with many researchers across Europe – what we call processes of ‘bio-objectifi cation’ (COST Action IS1001 www.bioobjects.eu). By employing and developing a common framework for analysing various bio-objects and their patterns of circulation in scientifi c research, policy circles, research politics, bio-ethical debates and not least, fi nancial exchange, we hope to make solid fi ndings, based both on detailed knowledge of the national contexts involved, and comparisons across objects, countries and contexts.

What is meant by the term ‘cybrid’? How has this technology developed?

TH: ‘Cybrid’ is a quite narrow term that we used initially, most easily defi ned as admixed embryos, created by transferring the nuclei from a somatic cell of one species into an enucleated egg cell from another species.

SM: Thus, in this way, scientists can create an early-stage embryo with human nuclear DNA, but non-human derived cytoplasm. The aim of the creation of these science-fi ction-like creatures were to help stem cell researchers develop new understanding of complex biological processes and ultimately develop therapies for patients within regenerative medicine.

How is stem cell research organised in Sweden?

TH: In Sweden, this research is essentially clustered in a handful of universities, with funding for long-term programmes from national research bodies. Increasingly, this comes with explicit pressure to commercialise stem cell-based products or services to boost the strained national economy. But who will pay for the new innovations and therapies? We want to fi nd out what challenges this research and such questions produce for society.

What new insights does the bio-objectifi cation framework allow for? TH: By following a particular bio-object and studying its transformations and consolidations across various arenas such as science, media, politics and market, our aim is to uncover the processes as they unfold. This is a rather novel approach within science and technology studies,

Social and educational scientists

Drs Tora Holmberg

,

Malin Ideland

and

Shai Mulinari

discuss their progress so

far on a research project addressing the contemporary and

controversial subject of cybrids and the discourse around them

Determining

discourse on

bio-objects

GENETIC MODIFICATION OF organisms may no longer be a shocking method of scientifi c research and practice but in the fi elds of genomics and biotechnology, the recent development of human admixed embryos and other forms of ‘cybrids’ remain controversial. Used for embryological research, regenerative therapies and stem cell research, these cybrids – or chimeras – are technically-produced intraspecies organisms of varying types. The central focus of discourse on the subject has been on human admixed embryos, as they incite necessary debate in many areas. Drs Tora Holmberg, Malin Ideland and Shai Mulinari are leading a project that seeks to investigate the challenges and comprehension of this scientifi c exploration in a cross-disciplinary manner. These investigation are vital to ensuring stable progress, not only in the scientifi c world, but in our consideration of key philosophical and cultural ideas.

FICTION INTO FACT

The possibility and consequences of scientists ‘playing God’ has been a popular subject of fi ctionalisation for many years. Now that some of those possibilities have the potential for actualisation, social and ethical discourse on this boundary-pushing research is of the utmost importance. That the cybrids themselves defy clear status and placement in human social understanding sparks specifi c problems, such as the transgression of traditional regulatory and policy frames and cultural categorisation systems. By touching upon many areas of defi nition they involve many actors and agencies, and the collation of discourses from different subject areas and across cultures will be an important focus of the project.

Discussion is important precisely because so many cultural, ethical and philosophical questions are raised by cybrids, as well as other ‘bio-objects’: their existence demands that we, as ‘valid’ humanbeings, consider our defi nition of life. Does the creation of life play a part in our perception of that life? What does it mean to be human? The ambiguous species identity of cybrids is often the fi rst dilemma encountered – are they considered animal or human? The creation of the term ‘bio-objects’ for these life entities and the ensuing concepts around them has

therefore been the fi rst step in simplifying further discourse on the subject. The team will conduct an empirical investigation into the process of bio-objectifi cation, in which life forms are made into objects through scientifi c labour and technology and then become attributed with specifi c identities. They have determined to explore the way in which the dilemmas created by such cross-bordering, boundary-pushing bio-objects are encountered, resolved or transformed within the contexts of different cultures and societal sectors: scientists, politicians, journalists and medical ethicists being of highest relevance.

CHALLENGING BOUNDARIES

The project realises the demand for fi nding new ways of constructing these bio-objects: “One common feature of bio-objects is that they challenge and disrupt both cultural and social, institutional boundaries,” Holmberg iterates. “What are often the objects of natural science and medicine no longer correlate with what we in society think of as clear cut boundaries between living and non-living, human and animal, natural and artifi cial.” These unclear boundaries have become normal in many scientifi c research areas: transgenic animals, for example, are handled as any other laboratory species. Yet the responses and approaches to bio-objects in other social spheres such as politics, media or ethics, are very different. Holmberg outlines some central reoccurring questions: “Key questions include how species hybrids are to be regulated; whether they belong to the human domain and should be handled by these institutions, or if they should mainly be considered animal and handled by the animal legislations and institutions”. Open discourse is essential for reaching very necessary conclusions on such questions,

Exploring the subject of

Cybrids

A project called Bio-objects in the 21

_{Century is addressing current}

developments in genetic modifi cation, aiming to re-politicise biomedical

research by recording and analysing various perspectives on cybrids

It is precisely because cybrids or

‘bio-objects’ raise so many cultural,

ethical and philosophical questions

that it is of vital importance that

they are discussed

where researchers usually study these areas one at a time in depth. We also hope to add informed knowledge around particular bio-objects produced in stem cell research, such as cybrids and induced ploripotent stem cells (IPSC).

To date, what do you consider as the most surprising fi nding from your investigation into the debate?

MI: We have been surprised at the silence around cybrids in Sweden; both in the policy apparatus and in mass media. Debates from the UK and Denmark have not spilled over to Sweden at all – even though the Swedish medical-ethics board asked for changes in the current legislation. But also, when we look at stem cell research in general, the hegemony of the economical discourse in research policy is quite surprising. When studying media debates about gene technology and stem cell research around the millennium, commercialisation was something negative, almost dangerous, for biomedical research. Nowadays this is desirable, which is refl ected in how the stem cell research is described, and also how stem cell researchers are construed as successful entrepreneurs. This is not a change that only applies to stem cell research. This refl ects a change in the university system as a whole, where research has shifted from exploration to entrepreneurship. Our study demonstrates how this systemic change takes different shapes in different contexts and how people, including scientists, adapt or even resist such changes.

How do you analyse criticism by those who are opposed to animal experimentation?

TH: In a previous project, we found a striking lack of communication from researchers based on a fear of animal activism, and investigated how this leads to institutional as well as cultural secrecy within the scientifi c community. The risk with this is an increased polarisation and distance between the public and the science community, and a lack of insight into a practice that is publicly funded and often quite accepted. Animal experimentation is involved in much stem cell research, but this is often not mentioned in press releases and media reports. Like all ethically charged areas, animal experimentation needs to be discussed and debated, not made secret.

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INTELLIGENCE

BIO-OBJECTS IN THE 21ST _CENTURY: CYBRIDS AND OTHER SPECIES HYBRIDS

OBJECTIVES

This project investigates the challenges that novel technological innovations in stem cell research pose, and how they are understood, handled and regulated in different areas of society. It develops theoretical tools to understand and resolve the challenges posed by these new bio-objects and is part of the COST Action IS1001: ‘Bio-objects and their boundaries: governing matters in the intersection of society, politics and science.’

FUNDING Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Crafoord Foundation Uppsala University CONTACT Dr Tora Holmberg Project Coordinator

Institute for Housing and Urban Research Uppsala University Box 785 SE-801 29 Uppsala Sweden T +46 738 362 511 E tora.holmberg@ibf.uu.se www.bioobjects.eu www.ibf.uu.se/PERSON/tora/tora.html

DR TORA HOLMBERG is a sociologist and Associate Professor at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests include Science and Technology Studies, human-animal relations in various contexts and spaces, urban studies and feminist theory.

DR MALIN IDELAND is Associate Professor in Ethnology and Senior Lecturer in Educational sciences at the Faculty of Learning and Society at Malmö University.

DR SHAI MULINARI holds a PhD in Developmental Biology from Lund University, Sweden. He is currently Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Learning and Society at Malmö University.

and the processes in which the different conclusions of various sectors and cultures are reached, will be subject to social study and comparison. The results look set to provide signifi cant insight into the way in which key ethical questions are handled and resolved in this modern world.

ENCOUNTERING DISCURSIVE SILENCE

One of the greatest challenges faced by the researchers is the current ‘silence’ in discourse about new stem cell technologies. There is a real danger of exploration into this area of science becoming taboo. In Sweden, since the initial surge of media and political interest in gene tests and embryonic stem cell research during the early part of the 21st _{Century, these}

new technologies have not been subjects opened for political or public debate. Currently, criticism of biomedical research is often classed as ‘reactionary’ and dismissed on the same grounds. In what could be considered a preemptive measure against a presumed reactionary response, a discursive silence has been maintained by many in the fi eld for fear of discussion hindering medical and commercial progress. It is this current paradigm that the researchers wish to change, as Ideland states: “We would like to open up the debate again and make it possible for critical perspectives on forgotten ethics, as well as highlighting questions about what consequences the economisation of research may bring about”. The team hopes that focus and interpretation of the bio-objectifi cation process and the discussions on arising issues will signifi cantly aid this process.

METHOD AND APPROACH

The methodological and theoretical advantage of an international network of researchers is highly signifi cant to the study, and originates from the prominent interaction of the initial research group with the European COST Offi ce, which is coordinating and funding a number of similar projects investigating various bio-objects as part of the Action ‘Bio-bio-objects and their boundaries: governing matters in the intersection of society, politics and science’. The key collaborators on this project therefore come from differing backgrounds of sociology, ethnology and developmental biology. This interdisciplinary approach provides a multi layered, inside and outside perspective on bio-objects and the challenges they present. Such an international and interdisciplinary approach

allows the project to trace how bio-objects’ multiple cultural meanings and scientifi c, ethical and political expressions are used for various purposes, as they circulate through many societal sectors.

The project, as well as the Action as a whole, focuses on three levels of analysis: changing boundaries between human and animals; multi-dimensional regulation and management; and the emergence of new forms of social relations through ‘bio-objectifi cation processes’. Research activities will consist of tracing all forms of discussion on bio-objects: from nationwide news coverage and internet fora, to governmental letters and parliamentary debates. The researchers will also interview key actors in the fi eld, such as stem cell researchers, bio-medical ethicists, politicians and science journalists, and plan to study related research proposals and research policy documents.

The work will be divided into three interrelated case studies: news and social media; scientifi c discourse; and political and regulatory context. Each case study will partly stand alone, headed by experts in each fi eld. However, the group will be aiming to bring all three case studies together and have expectations of positive synergy effects which will allow for an encompassing picture of the overall debate. Collection of empirical data will work in parallel with analysis of the collected data as the interest is in creating a biotechnological ‘issue’ and following the emergence of that issue in the public sphere. Whatever the outcomes are, this subject will have a major impact on our fundamental belief systems, scientifi c progression and social structures: the study of ‘Bio-objects in the 21st

Century’ is at the cutting edge of research in this area and looks set to provide intriguing insights into the workings of humankind.