Printing the body of the future: The bioeconomics of human bioprinting

• In Event: Bioeconomies - Life, Technologies, and Capital in the 21st Century II: The Reproductive Bioeconomy

Abstract

Based on ethnographic data collected in a French bioprinting start-up and a series of interviews with various French researchers in this field, this paper aims to show that human tissue and organ bioprinting is emblematic of the bioeconomy of the human body. In line with the promise economy, the field of bioprinting is characterized by a wide gap between the hopes it raises in the field of personalized medicine (i.e. individualized tissues for drug testing) and those of regenerative medicine (tissue replacement and organ transplant) as they relate to concrete research result. Despite the number of sociotechnical hurdles identified by researchers, they nevertheless support a futuristic and optimistic vision of bioprinting. This promise economy can be understood within the context of the financialization of research. Our ethnographic analysis reveals that the French start-up model creates a positive uptake by researchers about the futuristic potential of bioprinting. Because this field of biomedical innovation rests on a stem cell bioeconomy, we will explore the economic and social impacts of bioprinting as they relate to the status of bioprinted tissues. More concretely, we will show that current production of bioprinted tissues is more in line with the pharmaceutical industry than regenerative medicine, although the latter plays a greater role in serving the promise economy. Finally, we will examine how promissory discourse encourages a culture of experimentation among patients in the context of neoliberal biocitizenship.

Author

• Céline Lafontaine, University Of Montreal