Rajagopalan, Ramya (Author)
Fujimura, Joan H. (Author)
Journal of the History of Biology
Volume: 51
Issue: 4
Pages: 841-873
Publication date: 2018
Language: English
Edition Details: Part of a Series: Genomics and the Human Genome Project
In this article we examine the history of the production of microarray technologies and their role in constructing and operationalizing views of human genetic difference in contemporary genomics. Rather than the "turn to difference" emerging as a post-Human Genome Project (HGP) phenomenon, interest in individual and group differences was a central, motivating concept in human genetics throughout the twentieth century. This interest was entwined with efforts to develop polymorphic "genetic markers" for studying human traits and diseases. We trace the technological, methodological and conceptual strategies in the late twentieth century that established single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as key focal points for locating difference in the genome. By embedding SNPs in microarrays, researchers created a technology that they used to catalog and assess human genetic variation. In the process of making genetic markers and array-based technologies to track variation, scientists also made commitments to ways of describing, cataloging and "knowing" human genetic differences that refracted difference through a continental geographic lens. We show how difference came to matter in both senses of the term: difference was made salient to, and inscribed on, genetic matter(s), as a result of the decisions, assessments and choices of collaborative and hybrid research collectives in medical genomics research.
...MoreArticle Eric D. Green; Christopher R. Donohue (2018) Special Issue Editors' Introduction: "Genomics and the Human Genome Project". Journal of the History of Biology (pp. 625-629).
Similar Citations
Thesis
Rogers, Susan Nadia;
(2011)
Social Arrangements in Genomic Science: How Microarray Data and Researchers Shaped Each Other
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001562822/)
Article
Hogan, Andrew J.;
(2014)
The “Morbid Anatomy” of the Human Genome: Tracing the Observational and Representational Approaches of Postwar Genetics and Biomedicine The William Bynum Prize Essay
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001422150/)
Article
Philippe Huneman;
(2019)
The Multifaceted Legacy of the Human Genome Program for Evolutionary Biology: An Epistemological Perspective
(/p/isis/citation/CBB904878427/)
Article
Weingart, Peter;
Salzmann, Christian;
Wörmann, Stefan;
(2008)
The Social Embedding of Biomedicine: An Analysis of German Media Debates 1995--2004
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000930612/)
Article
Kathryn Maxson Jones;
Rachel A. Ankeny;
Robert Cook-Deegan;
(2018)
The Bermuda Triangle: The Pragmatics, Policies, and Principles for Data Sharing in the History of the Human Genome Project
(/p/isis/citation/CBB445174130/)
Article
Miguel García-Sancho;
Rhodri Leng;
Gil Viry;
Mark Wong;
Niki Vermeulen;
James Lowe;
(2022)
The Human Genome Project as a Singular Episode in the History of Genomics
(/p/isis/citation/CBB309822518/)
Article
Hilgartner, Stephen;
(2012)
Selective Flows of Knowledge in Technoscientific Interaction: Information Control in Genome Research
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001221397/)
Article
Frank, Reanne;
(2015)
Back to the Future? The Emergence of a Geneticized Conceptualization of Race in Sociology
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001510181/)
Article
Soraya de Chadarevian;
(2018)
Whose Turn? Chromosome Research and the Study of the Human Genome
(/p/isis/citation/CBB174267343/)
Article
Eric D. Green;
Christopher R. Donohue;
(2018)
Special Issue Editors' Introduction: "Genomics and the Human Genome Project"
(/p/isis/citation/CBB061547384/)
Thesis
Sung, Wen-Ching;
(2006)
Global Science: The Convergence of Biotechnology and Capitalism in China
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001561711/)
Article
Chu, Patricia E.;
(2013)
The American Genome Project: A Biopolitical History of the Contemporary Ethno-racial Novel
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001200683/)
Book
Silvia Casini;
(2021)
Giving Bodies Back to Data: Image Makers, Bricolage, and Reinvention in Magnetic Resonance Technology
(/p/isis/citation/CBB935991554/)
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)
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001221583/)
Article
Soraya de Chadarevian;
(2020)
Normalization and the Search for Variation in the Human Genome
(/p/isis/citation/CBB197700782/)
Book
Gee, Henry;
(2004)
Jacob's Ladder: The History of the Human Genome
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000520003/)
Book
Bliss, Catherine;
(2012)
Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001200118/)
Article
Zdenka Brzović;
Predrag Šustar;
(2020)
Postgenomics function monism
(/p/isis/citation/CBB311069000/)
Book
George G. Brownlee;
(2014)
Fred Sanger - Double Nobel Laureate: A Biography
(/p/isis/citation/CBB498106946/)
Book
Sandra S. Lee;
Barbara A. Koenig;
Sarah S. Richardson;
(2008)
Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age
(/p/isis/citation/CBB269168445/)
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
American Literary History
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
British Journal for the History of Science
Be the first to comment!