Bench, bedside, boardroom: negotiating translational gene therapy
This article presents ethnographic material from a London-based group of gene therapists who received the opportunity to trial a device that, its makers claimed, would expedite and improve their cell work. The Vanguard cell processor elicits both enthusiasm and ambivalence from group members, which...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Taylor & Francis Group
2017-01-01
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| Series: | New Genetics and Society |
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2017.1289468 |
| _version_ | 1797681270651617280 |
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| author | Courtney Addison |
| author_facet | Courtney Addison |
| author_sort | Courtney Addison |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article presents ethnographic material from a London-based group of gene therapists who received the opportunity to trial a device that, its makers claimed, would expedite and improve their cell work. The Vanguard cell processor elicits both enthusiasm and ambivalence from group members, which I seek to understand by examining the group’s current manner of working alongside the device and its purported virtues. I show that cell processing currently involves complex practices of recognition, attention, care, and involvement, which answer to both the liveliness of cells and the experimentality of gene therapy. I read these practices as a well-honed configuration of productive engagements and detachments, which the Vanguard would thoroughly rearticulate. I thus argue that translational gene therapy is a site at which private and academic interests meet, and that translation more generally might be seen as a space where the relational format of science is renegotiated. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T23:42:29Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f2a9b56594ce489bb318de6c6b2b0aec |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1463-6778 1469-9915 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T23:42:29Z |
| publishDate | 2017-01-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | New Genetics and Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-f2a9b56594ce489bb318de6c6b2b0aec2023-09-19T15:22:17ZengTaylor & Francis GroupNew Genetics and Society1463-67781469-99152017-01-01361224210.1080/14636778.2017.12894681289468Bench, bedside, boardroom: negotiating translational gene therapyCourtney Addison0University of CopenhagenThis article presents ethnographic material from a London-based group of gene therapists who received the opportunity to trial a device that, its makers claimed, would expedite and improve their cell work. The Vanguard cell processor elicits both enthusiasm and ambivalence from group members, which I seek to understand by examining the group’s current manner of working alongside the device and its purported virtues. I show that cell processing currently involves complex practices of recognition, attention, care, and involvement, which answer to both the liveliness of cells and the experimentality of gene therapy. I read these practices as a well-honed configuration of productive engagements and detachments, which the Vanguard would thoroughly rearticulate. I thus argue that translational gene therapy is a site at which private and academic interests meet, and that translation more generally might be seen as a space where the relational format of science is renegotiated.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2017.1289468gene therapydetachment/engagementtranslation |
| spellingShingle | Courtney Addison Bench, bedside, boardroom: negotiating translational gene therapy New Genetics and Society gene therapy detachment/engagement translation |
| title | Bench, bedside, boardroom: negotiating translational gene therapy |
| title_full | Bench, bedside, boardroom: negotiating translational gene therapy |
| title_fullStr | Bench, bedside, boardroom: negotiating translational gene therapy |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bench, bedside, boardroom: negotiating translational gene therapy |
| title_short | Bench, bedside, boardroom: negotiating translational gene therapy |
| title_sort | bench bedside boardroom negotiating translational gene therapy |
| topic | gene therapy detachment/engagement translation |
| url | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2017.1289468 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT courtneyaddison benchbedsideboardroomnegotiatingtranslationalgenetherapy |