Archive for biotechnology
March 14, 2008 at 9:56 AM · Filed under art, biology, biotechnology, interdisciplinary, making it public
tiara or crown of thorns?
This afternoon we concluded a week-long workshop in the so-called bioarts (go here for a nuanced discussion of the term) at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, India. The workshop, conducted by
Symbiotica and organized through a collaboration between
NCBS,
The Arts Catalyst and the
Center for Experimental Media Art at the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, brought together both Indian and international artists to engage with the tools of biotechnology as a way of investigating opportunities for research at the intersections of biology and art practice.
The capstone to the week was a community discussion among the participants and graduate students and faculty from NCBS. The conversation wa quite lively as it had been all week beginning with a opening keynote from Oron Catts about bioart and its role in cultural and scientific discourse.
Mukund Thattai moderated the discussion and acted as a provocateur by highlighting the potential for artists to become long-term interlocutors within the NCBS community. He particularly asked for skeptics of this art/biology engagement to share their concerns. Some of questions and concerns raised were:
- How does the arts research percolate ‘down’ into culture given that these are two “ivory towers” largely speaking to each other?
- Why is it that artists seem to be so vague in their proposals, seemingly lacking the precision of language to communicate ideas?
- That the sciences practiced in institutions like NCBS are not intended for the average person and that possibly they shouldn’t be involved in it’s production because of the responsibility involved.
- That the artworks produced appear to be superficial.
- That the ideas or concepts presented through the work are already known and aren’t progressive enough to indicate value.
- That biological research is drawing on ancient and traditional ways of knowing that largely obviate the need for any questioning of its categories and ways of understanding life.
- That biologists just need to become better communicators and all of the problems associated with, e.g. acceptance of evolution, will disappear (this was actually raised during our first day’s interaction with the NCBS community).
These questions were sincere and engaging, and I was happy that there was such a good turnout to discuss these issues. People shared many different perspectives that varied widely in their desire for further such engagements, different models of engagement, and skepticism for the value of the kinds of activities that we were engaged in.
I was somewhat restrained from entering the fray directly because one of my main goals is to elicit the widest possible display of concerns from a community like this. Sometimes I feel it is better to just listen and use the issues raised as areas for getting tactically involved.
This brings me to a rationale for art/science engagement that I think deals with many of the concerns raised. Art, when engaged with biology, performs a social function of ‘witnessing.’ Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer (Leviathan and the Air Pump, 1985) highlights this process in their analysis of Robert Boyle’s experiments with pneumatics and Thomas Hobbes’s critiques of his experimental program. They describe three processes that effectively multiply witnesses to experimentation and the resulting production of scientific knowledge: 1) facilitating replication–so that users can perform experiments themselves, 2) performance of experiments in a social space–i.e. sharing in the embodied experience, and (perhaps most importantly) 3)virtual witnessing–i.e. production in a user’s mind an image of the experimental scene such that it obviate the need for direct witness.
In the context of the workshop, I think this process of witnessing is increasingly relevant for the production of the biological program and its social contract with society. On the one hand, by teaching artists to use the tools of biology, Symbiotica creates an expectation that non-specialists could theoretically repeat experiments for themselves and verify their validity. Indeed, simple hypothesis testing was performed using environmental sampling of microorganisms and transformation of E. coli with a green fluorescent protein marker. Another example where replication of an experimental program is facilitated comes from the Critical Art Ensemble’s Marching Plague in which US military experiments in biowarfare were replicated with a critical eye for how the results did or did not support defense practice and the politicization of biotechnology. Each of these examples demonstrate how the practices of biology can be effectively replicated to allow for a wider social engagement of science and it’s relationship to other social groups and cultural concerns.
The second aspect of witnessing in shared spaces is perhaps the easiest to show. There were twenty residents at NCBS during the week, engaging in shared processes, visiting labs, and discussing the methods and implications of biological research in India. There’s a worldwide trend of artists working in labs with organizations. Kevin Kelly has a nice list of these residencies here.
What follows from these forms of replication and shared space is the dissemination of a virtual reality of the experimental program. I think that what comes out of artists’ engagement is a type of circumstantial evidence for scientifically-produced knowledge. It relies not on fact or even certainty but solely the residue of artistic engagement. Shapin and Schaffer point to these as circumstantial, stylized, accounts that do not exist as pure forms but instead as publicly acknowledged moves towards or away from “the reporting of contingencies.” Contingencies here means events or things that might jeopardize the validity of the experiment. By allowing the full spectrum of the experimental ‘scene’–perhaps through the inclusion of additional perspectives, political persuasions, or ideas–a better picture of experimentation and its context can be understood. The CEMA blog this week documented the workshop in detail. How often do you see that level of detail in the daily working of, say, a genetics lab? Consider also how art exports knowledge into other spaces and disciplines, either though its images or simply through the engagement itself.
Reflecting on all of this (and I’m tired now), I think one of the interesting questions to pursue is to ask what difference artistic engagement makes along each of these three axes. Does it differ from other methods of communication, and if so what are the behaviors and practices that make it so?
February 2, 2008 at 8:19 AM · Filed under bioinformatics, biotechnology, boundary objects, genes, genomics, maps, visualization
I ran across this today while searching for some mitochondrial gene information. It’s the MitoWheel (re:blogged via pimm). Gábor Zsurka, a mitochondrial geneticist, produced it in flash with actionscript.
click image to visit
When compared to, say, The National Center for Biotechnology Information’s mapviewer of human mitochondria, the difference and accessibility are unmistakable.
January 29, 2008 at 9:34 PM · Filed under art, biology, biotechnology, molecular biology, teaching and learning
National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore
March 10-14 2008
Call for Participants
Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and the National Centre for Biological Sciences, in collaboration with the Arts Catalyst and SymbioticA, is organising an intensive 5 day workshop for artists and others interested people. It will be led by SymbioticA’s Director Oron Catts and his scientific collaborator Greg Cozens from the University of Western Australia.
This is a hands-on workshop where the tools of modern biology are demonstrated through artistic engagement, which in turn gives voice to the broader philosophical and ethical exploration into the extent of human intervention with other living things. It involves exploration of biological technologies and issues stemming from their use, and serves as a theoretical and practical introduction to the creation of biological art and is aimed at educating artists from India in issues of biotechnology and the life sciences.
The workshop will cover hands-on engagement with these technologies in order to be able to carry out and critique manipulation of living systems from an informed practical perspective. The practical components include DNA extraction and fingerprinting, genetic engineering, plant and animal tissue culture and basic tissue engineering techniques.
The workshop will present work of contemporary artists dealing with biotechnology. Scientists will be involved discussing ethical issues raised by artists’ work in this area and leading visit to NCBS laboratories. At the end of the week, the ideas explored in the workshop will be opened out with a public discussion event at a venue to be announced in Bangalore.
Attendance and Conditions:
Attendance at the workshop will be by selection through open submission or by invitation. The selection will be made by Srishti, SymbioticA, the artist in residence at NCBS, and the Arts Catalyst’s curator, currently in residence at Srishti. Artists are expected to be available and present for the entire week-long workshop, as this is an intensive process of learning and social interaction. Artists should be based in India, or nearby countries in South Asia.
There is no cost to selected participants to attend the workshop, but travel and other expenses will not be covered. Limited accommodation is available at NCBS for artists travelling from outside Bangalore. Subsidised meals will be available for participants at NCBS.
The organisers believes that the effects of the workshop will be felt in the long-term, as the artists, having learned the technology, will start working on their own biotech projects, or at least feel their work is informed by the experience.
About SymbioticA:
SymbioticA is part of The School of Anatomy and Human Biology, Faculty of
Life and Physical Sciences, University of Western Australia. SymbioticA is an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. SymbioticA is the first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department.
SymbioticA sets out to provide a situation where interdisciplinary research and other knowledge and concept generating activities can take place. It provides an opportunity for researchers to pursue curiosity-based explorations free of the demands and constraints associated with the current culture of scientific research while still complying with regulations. SymbioticA also offers a new means of artistic inquiry, one in which artists actively use the tools and technologies of science, not just to comment about them, but also to explore their possibilities.
Links to the organisers:
www.symbiotica.uwa.ed.au
www.srishti.ac.in
www.ncbs.res.in
www.artscatalyst.org
www.cema.srishti.ac.in
Please send an expression of interest in attending as an email, including a CV and brief bio, by February 8 2008 at the latest to Meena Vari, Srishti: meena@srishti.ac.in
This workshop has made possible thorough the generous support of part of The School of Anatomy and Human Biology, and Faculty of Life and Physical Sciences, University of Western Australia, NCBS and the Sir Rattan Tata Trust.
November 28, 2007 at 12:32 AM · Filed under biotechnology, genes, genomics, semantics
“Genetics Just Got Personal” is the new tagline for 23andme, a new start-up that aims to take people’s saliva samples, genotype them, and make their genetic “plot points” accessible and searchable. Individuals can compare their single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to identify ancestral locations, compare them with celebrities, and see what diseases are associated with these SNPs. If an entire family submits their samples for testing, each of them can compare themselves to each of their family members. 
In 23andme’s letter to the medical community, they state that “the information [23andme service] provides is tailored to genotypes, not to individuals”.
It’s surprising then, given the history of genetics, that 23andme decided to use the “Genetics Just Got Personal” tagline. When someone says that something just got personal, it usually points to conflict, and that a specific individual, rather than a group, stands to loose as a result. Likewise, when someone says it’s not personal, it often refers to some effect that has had an asymmetrical effect on an individual even though it was not directly intended for them. The 23andme tagline sounds like something Arnold Shartzeneggar would say. It does sound tough and too the point, but it also raises suspicions about what getting personal means. Does this mean that my SNPs, which were previously unknown to me, will enter the forefront of my individual decision-making and social interactions? Will it become a part of the design ecology that other will consider when making medicines, devices, or services?
If genetic information does enter our everyday decision-making processes, a central concern is how that information is conveyed and how the information design biases or constrains the decisions we make. Given that 23andme is providing incomplete information, should I make a health decision based on what’s available? I don’t think they’re advocating that anyone make health or reproductive decisions based on the information they provide. They do, after all, provide suggestions for a range of resources (including genetic counseling) for contextualizing the costs and benefits of these kinds of decisions.
Still, I’m left with questions about how the visual design of bioinformatic resources like 23andme creates and constrains different ways of thinking about and engaging with the information.
23andme’s stated goals include advancing research and being world’s most trusted source of genetic information. Can we imaging any scenarios where these goals would come into conflict?
Given that the value of the resource increases with each additional genotype, are those that contribute to the resource entitled to any of the database’s value over time?
July 4, 2007 at 12:49 PM · Filed under biotechnology, semantics
In her New York Times column, Re:framing, Denise Caruso addresses recent discoveries in human genetics as they relate to the current platform for biotechnology and gene patenting guidelines.
The article begins by stating that:
THE $73.5 billion global biotech business may soon have to grapple with a discovery that calls into question the scientific principles on which it was founded.
Over at Evolgen, many commentators debate the scientific accuracy of Caruso’s arguments. I think it’s a mistake to make the argument that the scientific accuracy of her article is what’s at stake. Caruso’s point is that there is a gap between the science, the policy, and the biotech industry’s tactics. We’ve known for awhile that genes are not discrete entities. Unfortunately, it takes a direct hit to the human psyche for people to realize that the biological world applies to them too.
I’m not out to defend Caruso, but I do share her perspective that many perspectives are needed to address these issues. In response to what I thought was a fairly limited set of responses to her article, I contributed my own comment to the Evogen blog:
I agree that it’s easy to misunderstand Caruso’s arguments, especially if one takes a linear perspective towards them. I would have definitely preferred more background on the ENCODE project, but given the nuance of the science involved, perhaps her tactic of stating that the landscape (pun intended) is more complex than public policy reflects is more appropriate for the Times.
For one thing, Caruso’s argument doesn’t seem to be based at the molecular level at all. Caruso takes a population level perspective that’s needed to recognize and understand what is relevant to ownership and commodification of genetic processes. Genomics is only the vector; what she’s really talking about is capitalism.
Though it’s not clear if she is using “network effect” to refer to intragenomic interactions or intergenomic ones, her examples of bacterial resistance and malaria suggest that she’s referring to intergenomic interactions. My take on what she is reacting to is the observation that genetic interactions have many epistatic or non-linear effects while the prevalent assumption for biotech and policy-makers is that that genes are predominantly additive and that a predictable relationship exists between gene identity and outcome.
Starting with popular science is enough. The way genes are portrayed in popular culture suggests that there are genes for heart disease and genes for aggression and so on. That’s how biotech gets funded, no? By stipulating that specific genes have appreciable effects on health, the value of those genes can be measured, built, and sold as a product. This is misleading. Yes, we can associate disease variation with specific loci, but it’s is never the case that genes cause anything. Genetic material is one component of a very non-linear system that includes developmental timing and environmental interactions. As every evolutionary geneticist knows, selecting on a single trait often results in correlated responses across many other traits. Given that traits are based on the interactions of many genes, moving genes among individuals doesn’t bring the whole system along in the manner that, say, artificial selection does.
By stating that a gene has a distinct function, we are in essence naming it and categorizing it according to that function. For genes to be patented, a recognizable function has to be ascribed to them. We can say that the “terminator gene” has a protein binding function, but can’t we also say that the “terminator gene” also has a social unrest function if we expand our observations beyond the lab? Though we can’t directly establish a cause and effect relationship between large-scale social interactions and political protests and the gene, we know intuitively that the effect of of this transgene isn’t limited to corn or cotton.
It’s true that the science isn’t particularly new. What’s new is that people are starting to ask relevant questions about how the ownership and practices of industry takes into account the mechanistic possibilities for creating value as well as the relevant downstream biological and social process. This is not something that any single individual or profession can either validate or invalidate.
I’ll agree that “the economic and regulatory foundation on which the entire biotechnology industry is built” is probably a mix of a lot of different factors. But why isn’t it based on “the presumption that genes operate independently”? When was the last time you heard a company say that a disease was attributed to many genes and only in certain contexts and we’re not entirely sure how and when, but please still buy our product? People want certainty and hope, especially when their health is involved. Reducing the message down to single genes does that. All that Caruso is saying is that this may mean bigger problems down the line if we don’t actually revise our policy and language to match what we actually know about the world.
A correction to the original article at the HybridVigor blog
July 3, 2007 at 9:11 AM · Filed under art, biotechnology, making it public
Adam Zaretsky just sent me a link to his new three-part documentary. Adam is the VivoArts lab and has been in residence at the Centre for Art and Genomics in Leiden, the Netherlands. It looks like he’s been working on “special topics in embryogenesis.” Check it out.
Part 1, 2 and 3.
Also seen at http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/
June 21, 2007 at 8:58 AM · Filed under biology, biotechnology, Design, ecology
If Biology seeks to answer the question, “what characteristics of living things?”, then design biology tries to understand how the processes and artifacts of living systems help define design opportunities for humans and other systems.
I’ve adapted this definition based on how Elizabeth Tunstall defines what it means to be a design anthropologist. However, whereas the anthropological approach is more concerned with meaning, I think the design biologist is at least as concerned with function. The reason for this is that there has to be a certain level of integration for living systems to continue to cooperate, behave, or evolve dynamically. Therefore, if we are designing a product, understanding what the consequences of the product’s lifecycle are for humans and other living organisms is crucial if they are going to sustainable.
Another tactic is used by the Biomimicry Institute and seeks to incorporate processes and heuristics that exist in nature as for design research and strategy. By asking how a grebe or a spider accomplishes a certain task, we can understand a lot about the world. However, in order to do this, we need to have tools for recognizing patterns and process. Biologists bring these to the table during the design process. The other important skill is empathy. Being able to put oneself in another’s position is so important for recognizing how that solution may or may not work. Studying a leaf provides insight into the plant and may help you identify how your project can be cooperatively integrated into the ecosystem. Wouldn’t that be better than just designing despite the rest of the world? It’s a way cooler challenge.
Here’s an article on biomimicry at Worldchanging
and a video presentation at TED
March 15, 2007 at 6:41 AM · Filed under art, biology, biotechnology
Bio-artists bridge the gaps between arts and sciences | Chicago Tribune
-recent AP report on “bioart.” If find the ethics of suffering in the “bioart” context worth additional exploration you can view a PDF brief from the 2002 Aesthetics of Care symposium.
via emutagen.com
February 20, 2007 at 10:33 AM · Filed under biology, biotechnology, genes, genomics, teaching and learning, visualization
I recently had the opportunity to visit the exhibit GENOME: The Secret of How Life Works at the New York Hall of Science. Because part of my strategy for interacting with the world and the designs of culturally-embedded objects is to make their implicit sets of meanings explicit, I paid close and careful attention to the dominant metaphors employed in this exhibit. I was particularly interested in how the metaphors did or did not support the mission of the exhibit’s main sponsor, Pfizer.
Here is a summary list of those metaphors:
>Genome: Cracking the code
>Secrets(“this is the secret of you”)
>Gene switches shown with electric light switches that, when switched on, revealed concepts with text
>recipes with secrets
>recipes made in a factory
DNA=zippers
DNA=stuff
double helix=ideal shape
genes=DNA
DNA is a copy cat
proteins=origami
choreography in cells
cutting and pasting
cellular “community”
cell “world”
junk dna was, interestingly, deemphasized and implicated in the process of recombination
genes on chromosomes are like pairs of shoes
“the frontier” of research presented as a techno/ambient soundtrack with digital visualizations
“staying ahead of the flood” (of information, I hope)
time traveling
Information about applied careers and technology was presented after watson, crick, and franklin. Topics included:
gene therapy
bioinformatics
counseling
chemistry
treatments
newborn testing
drugs
stem cells = supercells
heredity slot machine (with the phrasing, “genes allow“)
The Reality Checks! (irony that reality is presented in a theatre)
-genetic engineering
-swapping genes from different animals
-cloning
-stem cells
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