Examining Synthetic Biology’s Entanglement with Concepts of "The Human": The Utility of Taking Stock

• In Event: Interrupting Innovation: Pausing to Examine New Biotechnologies - I

Abstract

In this presentation, I address how ‘the human’ is conceptualised in synthetic biology (synbio). I argue that tracing how human entities manifest and are mobilised in synbio is essential to understanding how the boundaries of ‘the human’, both as concept and material body, may shift as engineering biology is increasingly applied to mammalian systems.

I will introduce the ways in which ‘the human’ is ideated, instantiated and conceptualised in the context of making - and making sense of - synbio entities, and highlight the socioethical and epistemic consequences that such entanglements may have. I will then reflect upon the complications, contingencies and contradictions that such consequences might introduce into synbio’s relationship with post-genomic medicine and human therapeutics.

By shedding light on these considerations, I hope to stimulate discussion on the merit of taking stock of synbio’s entanglements with ‘the human’, and their utility in complicating assumptions and promises about synbio’s contribution to innovation in the healthcare industry.

This presentation will draw upon findings of my doctoral research that traces a selection of mammalian synbio entities as they are designed, constructed, articulated and mobilised. My research enacts ethnographic methodologies to follow these entities and ultimately creates the space to explore a less well represented aspect of STS: the category ‘human’.

Author

• Sophie Alexandra Rose Stone, University of Edinburgh