Making big promises come true? Articulating and realizing value in synthetic biology

Frow, Emma

doi:10.1057/biosoc.2013.28

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(26 reference statements)

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“…To give a few examples, philosophically-oriented research such as O'Malley (2009) points to the difficulties of engineering living things, and the reality of less sophisticated 'kludging'. Sociological investigations of synthetic biology have been carried out in the context of water engineering (Balmer and Molyneux-Hodgson, 2013), and on the negotiations surrounding the development of standardised biological parts (Frow 2013). Extended ethnographic work on synthetic biology has taken place in research centres in the UK (Finlay, 2013) and the US (Rabinow and Bennett, 2012).…”

Section: Promises and Expectations In Synthetic Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The US is also the organisational home of the Synthetic Biology X.0 conference series 1 and the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition-two key synthetic biology events (see Frow andCalvert, 2013 andBulpin, 2013 for further discussion of iGEM).…”

Section: The United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Committed engineers draw parallels with other successful infrastructural initiatives to argue for the value of their endeavours, such as the Internet Engineering Taskforce (see Frow, 2013). The notion of a 'fab' has also proved influential.…”

Section: The United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intentions, Expectations and Institutions: Engineering the Future of Synthetic Biology in the USA and the UK

Schyfter

Calvert

2015

Science as Culture

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Synthetic biology is a field in-the-making: a loosely-defined amalgamation of diverse disciplines, institutions, and practices. Where some practitioners identify as scientists, others consider themselves engineers; while some extol the simplicity of standardised biology, others dismiss it as counterproductive. Three different communities in synthetic biology (epistemics, sceptical constructors and committed engineers) can be distinguished by way of their intentions, practices and promises.Synthetic biologists' promises shape policy-makers' expectations, which in turn shape institutional arrangements. These institutional arrangements then influence practitioners' promises in an iterative fashion. In both the US and the UK, 'committed engineers' have succeeded in gaining support for an engineering-based and industry-centred vision of synthetic biology, which promises applications and economic growth. This group's intentions and promises have influenced policy-makers' expectations, which, in turn, have driven the major institutional developments in synthetic biology in the two countries.However, while the promises of the economic potential of this vision of the field have been embraced at policy levels, other aspects of this vision, such as the importance of enabling infrastructure, are often overlooked. In a sense, committed engineers' promises and rhetoric have been too successful, because they have overshadowed the institutional and infrastructural developments needed to make them a reality.

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Section: Promises and Expectations In Synthetic Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intentions, Expectations and Institutions: Engineering the Future of Synthetic Biology in the USA and the UK

Schyfter

Calvert

2015

Science as Culture

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“…Perhaps unsurprisingly, leading figures in the field have come to regard evolution as a historical process imposed upon biological form, positioning synthetic biology as liberating the organism from such tyranny (Endy 2014). Frow (2013) summarizes the situation very usefully, pointing to the distinctive temporal structure of synthetic biology:…”

Section: Synthetic Biology and Its Timesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life, Time, and the Organism: Temporal Registers in the Construction of Life Forms

Berry

Palladino

2018

J Hist Biol

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In this paper we articulate how time and temporalities are involved in the making of living things. For these purposes, we draw on an instructive episode concerning Norfolk Horn sheep. We attend to historical debates over the nature of the breed, whether it is extinct or not, and whether presently living exemplars are faithful copies of those that came before. We argue that there are features to these debates that are important to understanding contemporary configurations of life, time, and the organism, especially as these are articulated within the field of synthetic biology. In particular, we highlight how organisms are configured within different material and semiotic assemblages that are always structured temporally. While we identify three distinct structures, namely the historical, phyletic, and molecular registers, we do not regard the list as exhaustive. We also highlight how these structures are related to the care and value invested in the organisms at issue. Finally, because we are interested ultimately in ways of producing time, our subject matter requires us to think about historiographical practice reflexively. This draws us into dialogue with other scholars interested in time, not just historians, but also philosophers and sociologists, and into conversations with them about time as always multiple and never an inert background.

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“…Synthetic biology is a heterogeneous collection of approaches to designing and building with DNA (O'Malley et al 2008), but most social scientific and philosophical work on the topic has explored the "parts-based" approach, which has been synthetic biology's posterchild since the early 2000s (Frow 2013). It is dominated by the aspiration to "make biology easy to engineer" (Endy 2008, 340) by constructing modular, standardized genetic parts and circuits that are inserted into recipient cells, where (in theory) they perform the synthetic biologist's specified function (O'Malley et al 2008).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A feeling for the (micro)organism? Yeastiness, organism agnosticism and whole genome synthesis

Calvert

Szymanski

2020

New Genetics and Society

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Synthetic biologists attempt to apply engineering principles to biological systems. This involves treating organisms as "chassis"neutral frames into which synthetic constructs can be inserted, rather than living entities with distinctive features. Here we focus on a particularly charismatic organism -Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer's yeast)and the attempt to make a synthetic version of its genome. We argue that the "personality" of the yeast and the affective relationship scientists (and others) have to it, challenges the "organism agnosticism" of synthetic biology. This leads us to ask whether synthetic biologists have straightforwardly exploitative relationships to the organisms they work on. We connect this "feeling for the (micro)organism" to the activity of engineering whole genomes, rather than discrete genetic parts. We argue that this connection is significant because we are likely to see an escalation in attempts to synthesize complete genomes in the future, including the human genome.

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Making big promises come true? Articulating and realizing value in synthetic biology

Cited by 19 publications

References 44 publications

Intentions, Expectations and Institutions: Engineering the Future of Synthetic Biology in the USA and the UK

Intentions, Expectations and Institutions: Engineering the Future of Synthetic Biology in the USA and the UK

Life, Time, and the Organism: Temporal Registers in the Construction of Life Forms

A feeling for the (micro)organism? Yeastiness, organism agnosticism and whole genome synthesis

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