STS Interruptions in Industrial Bio-Production

• In Event: Products of Biotecnoscience: Modified Living Beings Used in Health and Agriculture Activities - II

Abstract

The field of synthetic biology has been subject to scrutiny from STS for some years. Participation of STS researchers within some synthetic biology projects became commonplace and afforded reflection on the multitude of forms and goals for STS engagement with an emerging technoscientific field. The role of ELSI, post-ELSI and ‘we have never been ELSI’ positions could be re-assessed. However, these interactions largely remained within the realm of academia. Recently, shifts to funding regimes and policy imperatives have opened up opportunity for STS to engage more directly with industry actors in the emerging bio-economy.

The paper presents analysis from two such projects, one funded by a scientific research funding council and one by an innovation funding body. Both projects were concerned with the possibilities of exploiting synthetic biology approaches to the production of everyday chemicals using microbes. The initial STS involvement used ethnography and a lens of ‘responsible innovation’. In the first project we explored emergent understandings of responsibility among bioscientists working in collaboration between academia and industrial biotechnology companies. In the second project we collaborated directly with an industrial biotechnology company to explore what responsibility meant in relation to specific microbial product developments.

We will describe how the projects came about, how they worked in practice and reflect on the opportunities and limitations to developing STS research in these forms of project. Lego and knitting will feature. We question: to what extent is co-production a productive lens through which to comprehend these collaborative relations?

Authors

• Susan Molyneux-Hodgson, University of Exeter

• Sally Atkinson, University of Exeter

• Achim Rosemann, University of Warwick, UK