The Adiponectin Assemblage: An Anthropological Perspective on Pharmacogenomics in Japan (2013)
Mohácsi, Gergely (Author)
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Volume: 7, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 261-281
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Traveling Comparisons: Ethnographic Reflections on Science and Technology”
Language: English
The implications of pharmacogenomic innovations for human difference and technological progress, along with the hopes and risks they bring forth, have been addressed as a major area of tension among scientific, personal, and political interests. This article explores the consequences of such clashing concerns in Japan by drawing on current ideas of postplurality within STS and anthropology. How does the body of the diabetic patient---from (thrifty) genes to fat bellies---become an experimental site of biotechnological and public health innovations in contemporary Japan? What is at stake when these bodies move across different locations and scales in the comparative practices of pharmacogenomics? These are the questions I pursue through an ethnographic presentation of adiponectin, a fat-cell-derived hormone that has attracted considerable attention during the past decade in the study of diabetes. By exploring three planes of the adiponectin research (genetics, epidemiology, and drug discovery), the analysis of this case study suggests that genes and populations, publics and scientists, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are not static objects of medicine but rather interfere with each other in their differences through a series of comparative practices, such as linkage analysis, haplotyping, or clinical trials. Such comparisons across populations, markets, disciplines, and disease entities require and generate a permanent traffic between genetics and epidemiology, highlighting the specific dynamics between these scientific realms. In this new form of medicine, I argue, the prevention of disease aligns illness entities with drug responses in a biopolitical work of differentiation, with significant consequences for traditional methods of social research.
...MoreArticle Mohácsi, Gergely; Morita, Atsuro (2013) Traveling Comparisons: Ethnographic Reflections on Science and Technology. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (pp. 175-183).
Similar Citations
Article
Smart, Andrew;
Martin, Paul;
(2006)
The Promise of Pharmacogenetics: Assessing the Prospects for Disease and Patient Stratification
(/isis/citation/CBB000770743/)
Chapter
Shintaro Sengoku;
(2019)
Consortium-Based Open Innovation: Exploring a Unique and Optimal Model for Regional Biotechnology Industry
(/isis/citation/CBB149339845/)
Article
Kazanjian, Powel;
(2014)
The AIDS Pandemic in Historic Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB001420763/)
Thesis
Moxley, Shera A.;
(2012)
Designer Drugs: Rational Therapeutics in the Biotechnology Era, 1973--1997
(/isis/citation/CBB001561025/)
Book
Stern, Alexandra;
(2012)
Telling Genes: The Story of Genetic Counseling in America
(/isis/citation/CBB001213529/)
Article
Kaori Iida;
Robert N Proctor;
(2004)
Learning from Philip Morris: Japan Tobacco's Strategies Regarding Evidence of Tobacco Health Harms as Revealed in Internal Documents from the American Tobacco Industry
(/isis/citation/CBB400017922/)
Book
Rasmussen, Nicolas;
(2014)
Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise
(/isis/citation/CBB001552207/)
Chapter
Hilgartner, Stephen;
(2004)
Mapping Systems and Moral Order: Constituting Property in Genome Laboratories
(/isis/citation/CBB000470173/)
Book
Kent H. Redford;
William M. Adams;
(2021)
Strange Natures: Conservation in the Era of Synthetic Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB135931569/)
Book
Carlson, Robert H.;
(2010)
Biology Is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life
(/isis/citation/CBB001251428/)
Thesis
Carpenter, Elise Audrey;
(2008)
The Social Practice of HIV Drug Therapy in Botswana, 2002--2004: Experts, Bureaucrats, and Health Care Providers
(/isis/citation/CBB001561188/)
Article
Itty Abraham;
(2017)
From the Commission to the Mission Model: Technology Czars and the Indian Middle Class
(/isis/citation/CBB047922701/)
Article
Acker, Caroline Jean;
(2010)
How Crack Found a Niche in the American Ghetto: The Historical Epidemiology of Drug-Related Harm
(/isis/citation/CBB001036125/)
Article
Bittencourt, Silvia Cardoso;
Caponi, Sandra;
Maluf, Sonia;
(2013)
Farmacologia no século XX: a ciência dos medicamentos a partir da análise do livro de Goodman e Gilman
(/isis/citation/CBB001420651/)
Article
Greene, Jeremy A.;
(2005)
Releasing the Flood Waters: Diuril and the Reshaping of Hypertension
(/isis/citation/CBB000800013/)
Article
Shirai, Chiaki;
(June 2019)
Genetic Ties and Affinity: Longitudinal Interviews on Two Mothers' Experiences of Egg Donation in Japan
(/isis/citation/CBB625690678/)
Article
Hirofumi Saito;
(2021)
International Genetics Symposia in Tokyo and Kyoto 1956: A Case of Communication between Japanese Mendelian Geneticists and a Soviet Michurinist Delegation
(/isis/citation/CBB388625775/)
Article
Jacalyn Duffin;
(2020)
The Yew Tree and the Crab: A Case Study of Big Pharma, Small Pharma, and an Anti-Cancer Drug
(/isis/citation/CBB756855341/)
Article
Tsuyoshi Fujioka;
(2016)
Japanese Lysenkoists after Lysenko's Downfall
(/isis/citation/CBB185598354/)
Article
Kaori Iida;
(2021)
Postwar Reconstruction of Japanese Genetics: Kihara Hitoshi and the Rockefeller Foundation Rice Project in Cold War Asia
(/isis/citation/CBB800955448/)
The Lancet
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Pharmacy in History
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
Journal of Asian Studies
Be the first to comment!