IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB876722856

Controlling new knowledge: Genomic science, governance and the politics of bioinformatics (April 2017)

Salter, Brian (Author)
Salter, Charlotte (Author)

Social Studies of Science
Volume: 47
Issue: 2
Pages: 263-287

DOI: 10.1177/0306312716681210

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Governance Biology Bioinformatics Genomics Science and State Science and politics Science and ideology

The rise of bioinformatics is a direct response to the political difficulties faced by genomics in its quest to be a new biomedical innovation, and the value of bioinformatics lies in its role as the bridge between the promise of genomics and its realization in the form of health benefits. Western scientific elites are able to use their close relationship with the state to control and facilitate the emergence of new domains compatible with the existing distribution of epistemic power – all within the embrace of public trust. The incorporation of bioinformatics as the saviour of genomics had to be integrated with the operation of two key aspects of governance in this field: the definition and ownership of the new knowledge. This was achieved mainly by the development of common standards and by the promotion of the values of communality, open access and the public ownership of data to legitimize and maintain the governance power of publicly funded genomic science. Opposition from industry advocating the private ownership of knowledge has been largely neutered through the institutions supporting the science-state concordat. However, in order for translation into health benefits to occur and public trust to be assured, genomic and clinical data have to be integrated and knowledge ownership agreed upon across the separate and distinct governance territories of scientist, clinical medicine and society. Tensions abound as science seeks ways of maintaining its control of knowledge production through the negotiation of new forms of governance with the institutions and values of clinicians and patients.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB876722856/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article García-Sancho, Miguel; (2012)
From the Genetic to the Computer Program: The Historicity of “Data” and “Computation” in the Investigations on the Nematode Worm C. elegans (1963--1998) (/isis/citation/CBB001221583/)

Article Cohen, Michael P.; (2010)
Evolutionary Works and Texts: Reading Dobzhansky in an Age of Genomics (/isis/citation/CBB001023614/)

Article Brian Salter; Yinhua Zhou; Saheli Datta; Charlotte Salter; (September 2016)
Bioinformatics and the Politics of Innovation in the Life Sciences: Science and the State in the United Kingdom, China, and India (/isis/citation/CBB590127808/)

Article Alexandra Soulier; (June 2019)
Reconsidering Dynamic Consent in Biobanking: Ethical and Political Consequences of Transforming Research Participants Into ICT Users (/isis/citation/CBB513126061/)

Article Cassata, Francesco; (2012)
The Italian Communist Party and the “Lysenko Affair” (1948--1955) (/isis/citation/CBB001250828/)

Article deJong-Lambert, William; Krementsov, Nikolai; (2012)
On Labels and Issues: The Lysenko Controversy and the Cold War (/isis/citation/CBB001250824/)

Article Vedran Duančić; (2020)
Lysenko in Yugoslavia, 1945–1950s: How to De-Stalinize Stalinist Science (/isis/citation/CBB524254444/)

Article Kas'yan, A. A.; Kurevina, S. V.; Petrova, N. Ye.; (2010)
The Waning Signal: Ideological Discussions in Mid-20th-Century Soviet Science in Regional Context (/isis/citation/CBB001211367/)

Book Hallam Stevens; Sarah S. Richardson; (2015)
Postgenomics: Perspectives on Biology after the Genome (/isis/citation/CBB862623870/)

Article María Elena Giraldo; Eliana Arancibia Gutiérrez; (2023)
Governance in socio-environmental research: an analysis of multi-stakeholder cooperation mechanisms in two research laboratories in Yucatan, Mexico (/isis/citation/CBB497620424/)

Article Larry Au; Renan Gonçalves Leonel da Silva; (January 2021)
Globalizing the Scientific Bandwagon: Trajectories of Precision Medicine in China and Brazil (/isis/citation/CBB422379363/)

Book Charles S. Cockell; (2023)
The Institutions of Extraterrestrial Liberty (/isis/citation/CBB202760038/)

Article Reardon, Jenny; (2012)
The Democratic, Anti-Racist Genome? Technoscience at the Limits of Liberalism (/isis/citation/CBB001251158/)

Article Leonelli, Sabina; Ankeny, Rachel A.; (2012)
Re-Thinking Organisms: The Impact of Databases on Model Organism Biology (/isis/citation/CBB001221584/)

Article Calvert, Jane; (2012)
Systems Biology, Synthetic Biology and Data-Driven Research: A Commentary on Krohs, Callebaut, and O'Malley and Soyer (/isis/citation/CBB001221589/)

Book Stevens, Hallam; (2013)
Life out of Sequence: A Data-Driven History of Bioinformatics (/isis/citation/CBB001213157/)

Article Leonelli, S.; (2012)
Introduction: Making Sense of Data-Driven Research in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB001221581/)

Article Krohs, Ulrich; (2012)
Convenience Experimentation (/isis/citation/CBB001221586/)

Book Moody, Glyn; (2004)
Digital Code of Life: How Bioinformatics is Revolutionizing Science, Medicine, and Business (/isis/citation/CBB000411011/)

Article Wennerström, Frida; Dubois, Anna; (2004)
Organising Research Interaction: A Case Study of a Research Project in Bioinformatics (/isis/citation/CBB000770379/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}