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Researcher Name: Christine Hauskeller Affiliated Staff: Jean Harrington and Alison Kraft Project Start Date: 01.01.2008 Project End Date: 30.09.2012 Contact Details: Homepage: Christine Hauskeller Email: C.Hauskeller@exeter.ac.uk Funder: Background: Cells have become a major target for and tool of biomedical attention and intervention. The cells under study are often modified in multiple ways, refined, selected, marked, or developed into cell lines. Cells in cell lines change over cycles of proliferation and develop mutations characteristic of their respective laboratory environment. Techniques are being developed to modify the DNA content of cells, manage the complex interactions between cell components and the semi-permeability, in order to add to or reduce their contents. The discourse about cellular therapies employs a rhetoric of natural versus modified. This distinction is mirrored in the regulatory systems that control both the science and its application in animals and humans. The recent debate in the UK about hybrid embryos, and more globally about induced pluripotent cells and proto cells and their status in the arenas of society and morality, biomedicine and science, demonstrates the need to engage with the classifications and ideologies in order to understand the role of the science and its social uptake. Aims and Objectives: In attempts to create artificial living entities, the definitions of ‘life’ that are employed are crucial to both the understanding of what synthetic biology is and whether it achieves its aims. Correspondingly, markers for when life exists are of major importance to the field. The simplification and modelling of understandings of life affects both the ontology of the synthetic living objects and the socio-cultural signature of the field, and its ethical challenges. Research Methods: Literature analysis including scientific, philosophical and social science literature Participant observation at a range of typical events including scientific conferences, public engagement events and seminars with wider publics and students Interviews with researchers in science and medicine, policy makers and legal and administrative actors working in private or public institutions Key Findings: Wider implications for policy: Project Update: Publications: Hauskeller, C., 2009, ‘Toward a Critical Evaluation of Proto Cell Research’, in Bedau M. and Parke E. (eds), The Ethics of Proto Cells: Moral and Social Implications of Creating Life in the Laboratory, MIT Press, pp. 598-636. Weber, S. and Hauskeller C., ‘Framing Pluripotency: iPS cells and the Shaping of Stem Cell Science', New Genetics and Society 4(30) (forthcoming 2012). Educational tool: Hauskeller, C. and Harrington, J. ‘Human Embryos or Hybrids? A Decision Making Role Play on Stem Cell Research and Ethics’ External Links: Further information:
Homepage: Christine Hauskeller
Email: C.Hauskeller@exeter.ac.uk
Cells have become a major target for and tool of biomedical attention and intervention. The cells under study are often modified in multiple ways, refined, selected, marked, or developed into cell lines. Cells in cell lines change over cycles of proliferation and develop mutations characteristic of their respective laboratory environment. Techniques are being developed to modify the DNA content of cells, manage the complex interactions between cell components and the semi-permeability, in order to add to or reduce their contents.
The discourse about cellular therapies employs a rhetoric of natural versus modified. This distinction is mirrored in the regulatory systems that control both the science and its application in animals and humans. The recent debate in the UK about hybrid embryos, and more globally about induced pluripotent cells and proto cells and their status in the arenas of society and morality, biomedicine and science, demonstrates the need to engage with the classifications and ideologies in order to understand the role of the science and its social uptake.
Hauskeller, C., 2009, ‘Toward a Critical Evaluation of Proto Cell Research’, in Bedau M. and Parke E. (eds), The Ethics of Proto Cells: Moral and Social Implications of Creating Life in the Laboratory, MIT Press, pp. 598-636.
Weber, S. and Hauskeller C., ‘Framing Pluripotency: iPS cells and the Shaping of Stem Cell Science', New Genetics and Society 4(30) (forthcoming 2012).
Educational tool: Hauskeller, C. and Harrington, J. ‘Human Embryos or Hybrids? A Decision Making Role Play on Stem Cell Research and Ethics’
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