DRS TORA HOLMBERG, MALIN IDELAND AND SHAI MULINARI
Determining
discourse on
bio-objects
What is meant by the term ‘cybrid’? How
has this technology developed?
TH: ‘Cybrid’ is a quite narrow term that we
used initially, most easily defined as admixed
embryos, created by transferring the nuclei
from a somatic cell of one species into an
enucleated egg cell from another species.
Social and educational scientists Drs Tora Holmberg,
Malin Ideland and Shai Mulinari discuss their progress so
far on a research project addressing the contemporary and
controversial subject of cybrids and the discourse around them
Can you begin by outlining the principal
aims and objects of your research into
bio-objects?
TH: Our focus, as you mention, is bio-objects –
loosely defined as bio-medically produced life
forms that challenge juridical, political, ethical
and cultural ordering systems. However, we are
specifically interested in the processes through
which these objects are formed. Thus, we trace
– and this is a highly collaborative effort with
many researchers across Europe – what we call
processes of ‘bio-objectification’ (COST Action
IS1001 www.bioobjects.eu). By employing and
developing a common framework for analysing
various bio-objects and their patterns of
circulation in scientific research, policy circles,
research politics, bio-ethical debates and not
least, financial exchange, we hope to make solid
findings, based both on detailed knowledge of
the national contexts involved, and comparisons
across objects, countries and contexts.
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INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION
SM: Thus, in this way, scientists can create an
early-stage embryo with human nuclear DNA,
but non-human derived cytoplasm. The aim
of the creation of these science-fiction-like
creatures were to help stem cell researchers
develop new understanding of complex
biological processes and ultimately develop
therapies for patients within regenerative
medicine.
How is stem cell research organised in
Sweden?
TH: In Sweden, this research is essentially
clustered in a handful of universities, with
funding for long-term programmes from national
research bodies. Increasingly, this comes with
explicit pressure to commercialise stem cellbased products or services to boost the strained
national economy. But who will pay for the new
innovations and therapies? We want to find out
what challenges this research and such questions
produce for society.
What new insights does the bioobjectification framework allow for?
TH: By following a particular bio-object and
studying its transformations and consolidations
across various arenas such as science, media,
politics and market, our aim is to uncover the
processes as they unfold. This is a rather novel
approach within science and technology studies,
DRS TORA HOLMBERG, MALIN IDELAND AND SHAI MULINARI
Exploring the subject of Cybrids
A project called Bio-objects in the 21st Century is addressing current
developments in genetic modification, aiming to re-politicise biomedical
research by recording and analysing various perspectives on cybrids
where researchers usually study these areas one
at a time in depth. We also hope to add informed
knowledge around particular bio-objects
produced in stem cell research, such as cybrids
and induced ploripotent stem cells (IPSC).
To date, what do you consider as the most
surprising finding from your investigation
into the debate?
MI: We have been surprised at the silence
around cybrids in Sweden; both in the policy
apparatus and in mass media. Debates from
the UK and Denmark have not spilled over
to Sweden at all – even though the Swedish
medical-ethics board asked for changes in the
current legislation. But also, when we look at
stem cell research in general, the hegemony
of the economical discourse in research
policy is quite surprising. When studying
media debates about gene technology and
stem cell research around the millennium,
commercialisation was something negative,
almost dangerous, for biomedical research.
Nowadays this is desirable, which is reflected
in how the stem cell research is described, and
also how stem cell researchers are construed
as successful entrepreneurs. This is not a
change that only applies to stem cell research.
This reflects a change in the university system
as a whole, where research has shifted from
exploration to entrepreneurship. Our study
demonstrates how this systemic change takes
different shapes in different contexts and how
people, including scientists, adapt or even
resist such changes.
How do you analyse criticism by
those who are opposed to animal
experimentation?
TH: In a previous project, we found a striking
lack of communication from researchers based
on a fear of animal activism, and investigated
how this leads to institutional as well as cultural
secrecy within the scientific community. The
risk with this is an increased polarisation and
distance between the public and the science
community, and a lack of insight into a
practice that is publicly funded and often quite
accepted. Animal experimentation is involved
in much stem cell research, but this is often
not mentioned in press releases and media
reports. Like all ethically charged areas, animal
experimentation needs to be discussed and
debated, not made secret.
GENETIC MODIFICATION OF organisms
may no longer be a shocking method of
scientific research and practice but in the
fields of genomics and biotechnology, the
recent development of human admixed
embryos and other forms of ‘cybrids’ remain
controversial. Used for embryological
research, regenerative therapies and stem cell
research, these cybrids – or chimeras – are
technically-produced intraspecies organisms
of varying types. The central focus of discourse
on the subject has been on human admixed
embryos, as they incite necessary debate
in many areas. Drs Tora Holmberg, Malin
Ideland and Shai Mulinari are leading a project
that seeks to investigate the challenges and
comprehension of this scientific exploration
in a cross-disciplinary manner. These
investigation are vital to ensuring stable
progress, not only in the scientific world, but
in our consideration of key philosophical and
cultural ideas.
FICTION INTO FACT
The possibility and consequences of scientists
‘playing God’ has been a popular subject
of fictionalisation for many years. Now
that some of those possibilities have the
potential for actualisation, social and ethical
discourse on this boundary-pushing research
is of the utmost importance. That the cybrids
themselves defy clear status and placement
in human social understanding sparks specific
problems, such as the transgression of
traditional regulatory and policy frames and
cultural categorisation systems. By touching
upon many areas of definition they involve
many actors and agencies, and the collation
of discourses from different subject areas and
across cultures will be an important focus of
the project.
Discussion is important precisely because
so many cultural, ethical and philosophical
questions are raised by cybrids, as well as
other ‘bio-objects’: their existence demands
that we, as ‘valid’ humanbeings, consider
our definition of life. Does the creation of
life play a part in our perception of that
life? What does it mean to be human? The
ambiguous species identity of cybrids is often
the first dilemma encountered – are they
considered animal or human? The creation
of the term ‘bio-objects’ for these life entities
and the ensuing concepts around them has
It is precisely because cybrids or
‘bio-objects’ raise so many cultural,
ethical and philosophical questions
that it is of vital importance that
they are discussed
therefore been the first step in simplifying
further discourse on the subject. The team
will conduct an empirical investigation into
the process of bio-objectification, in which
life forms are made into objects through
scientific labour and technology and then
become attributed with specific identities.
They have determined to explore the way in
which the dilemmas created by such crossbordering, boundary-pushing bio-objects are
encountered, resolved or transformed within
the contexts of different cultures and societal
sectors: scientists, politicians, journalists and
medical ethicists being of highest relevance.
CHALLENGING BOUNDARIES
The project realises the demand for finding
new ways of constructing these bio-objects:
“One common feature of bio-objects is that
they challenge and disrupt both cultural and
social, institutional boundaries,” Holmberg
iterates. “What are often the objects of
natural science and medicine no longer
correlate with what we in society think of
as clear cut boundaries between living and
non-living, human and animal, natural and
artificial.” These unclear boundaries have
become normal in many scientific research
areas: transgenic animals, for example, are
handled as any other laboratory species. Yet
the responses and approaches to bio-objects
in other social spheres such as politics,
media or ethics, are very different. Holmberg
outlines some central reoccurring questions:
“Key questions include how species hybrids
are to be regulated; whether they belong to
the human domain and should be handled
by these institutions, or if they should
mainly be considered animal and handled
by the animal legislations and institutions”.
Open discourse is essential for reaching very
necessary conclusions on such questions,
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INTELLIGENCE
BIO-OBJECTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY:
CYBRIDS AND OTHER SPECIES HYBRIDS
OBJECTIVES
This project investigates the challenges
that novel technological innovations in
stem cell research pose, and how they
are understood, handled and regulated
in different areas of society. It develops
theoretical tools to understand and resolve
the challenges posed by these new bioobjects and is part of the COST Action
IS1001: ‘Bio-objects and their boundaries:
governing matters in the intersection of
society, politics and science.’
FUNDING
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
Crafoord Foundation
ENCOUNTERING DISCURSIVE SILENCE
Uppsala University
One of the greatest challenges faced by the
researchers is the current ‘silence’ in discourse
about new stem cell technologies. There is
a real danger of exploration into this area of
science becoming taboo. In Sweden, since the
initial surge of media and political interest in
gene tests and embryonic stem cell research
during the early part of the 21st Century, these
new technologies have not been subjects
opened for political or public debate. Currently,
criticism of biomedical research is often
classed as ‘reactionary’ and dismissed on the
same grounds. In what could be considered
a preemptive measure against a presumed
reactionary response, a discursive silence has
been maintained by many in the field for fear of
discussion hindering medical and commercial
progress. It is this current paradigm that the
researchers wish to change, as Ideland states:
“We would like to open up the debate again
and make it possible for critical perspectives
on forgotten ethics, as well as highlighting
questions about what consequences the
economisation of research may bring about”.
The team hopes that focus and interpretation
of the bio-objectification process and the
discussions on arising issues will significantly aid
this process.
CONTACT
Dr Tora Holmberg
Project Coordinator
Institute for Housing and Urban Research
Uppsala University
Box 785
SE-801 29 Uppsala
Sweden
T +46 738 362 511
E [email protected]
www.bioobjects.eu
www.ibf.uu.se/PERSON/tora/tora.html
DR TORA HOLMBERG is a sociologist
and Associate Professor at the Institute
for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala
University, Sweden. Her research interests
include Science and Technology Studies,
human-animal relations in various contexts
and spaces, urban studies and feminist theory.
DR MALIN IDELAND is Associate Professor in
Ethnology and Senior Lecturer in Educational
sciences at the Faculty of Learning and
Society at Malmö University.
DR SHAI MULINARI holds a PhD in
Developmental Biology from Lund University,
Sweden. He is currently Postdoctoral
Researcher at the Faculty of Learning and
Society at Malmö University.
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and the processes in which the different
conclusions of various sectors and cultures
are reached, will be subject to social study and
comparison. The results look set to provide
significant insight into the way in which key
ethical questions are handled and resolved in
this modern world.
INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION
METHOD AND APPROACH
The methodological and theoretical advantage
of an international network of researchers is
highly significant to the study, and originates
from the prominent interaction of the initial
research group with the European COST Office,
which is coordinating and funding a number
of similar projects investigating various bioobjects as part of the Action ‘Bio-objects and
their boundaries: governing matters in the
intersection of society, politics and science’.
The key collaborators on this project therefore
come from differing backgrounds of sociology,
ethnology and developmental biology. This
interdisciplinary approach provides a multi
layered, inside and outside perspective on bioobjects and the challenges they present. Such
an international and interdisciplinary approach
allows the project to trace how bio-objects’
multiple cultural meanings and scientific,
ethical and political expressions are used for
various purposes, as they circulate through
many societal sectors.
The project, as well as the Action as a whole,
focuses on three levels of analysis: changing
boundaries between human and animals; multidimensional regulation and management; and
the emergence of new forms of social relations
through
‘bio-objectification
processes’.
Research activities will consist of tracing
all forms of discussion on bio-objects: from
nationwide news coverage and internet fora,
to governmental letters and parliamentary
debates. The researchers will also interview key
actors in the field, such as stem cell researchers,
bio-medical ethicists, politicians and science
journalists, and plan to study related research
proposals and research policy documents.
The work will be divided into three interrelated
case studies: news and social media; scientific
discourse; and political and regulatory context.
Each case study will partly stand alone, headed
by experts in each field. However, the group will
be aiming to bring all three case studies together
and have expectations of positive synergy
effects which will allow for an encompassing
picture of the overall debate. Collection of
empirical data will work in parallel with analysis
of the collected data as the interest is in creating
a biotechnological ‘issue’ and following the
emergence of that issue in the public sphere.
Whatever the outcomes are, this subject will
have a major impact on our fundamental
belief systems, scientific progression and social
structures: the study of ‘Bio-objects in the 21st
Century’ is at the cutting edge of research in this
area and looks set to provide intriguing insights
into the workings of humankind.