Making the microbiome public: Participatory experiments with DNA sequencing in domestic kitchens
Making the microbiome public: Participatory experiments with DNA sequencing in domestic kitchens
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DOI：
10.1111/tran.12289
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发表时间：
2019-09-01
影响因子：
3.3
通讯作者：
Dwyer, Andrew
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lorimer, Jamie;Hodgetts, Timothy;Dwyer, Andrew
最近DNA测序能力和可负担性的快速提高使科学家能够绘制微生物组图，并确定其与一系列健康状况的关联。人们越来越担心，缺失的微生物可能是目前炎症性疾病上升的幕后黑手。微生物缺乏和生物失调与一系列卫生做法有关，这加剧了人们对过于清洁和超级细菌风险的焦虑和困惑。越来越多的微生物学项目允许一些公众参与DNA测序，并使微生物组管理中的DIY实验成为可能。倡导者将其宣传为排序的民主化。本文概述了一种使微生物组公开的新方法，并探索了与微生物一起思考社会科学研究的潜力。它报道了一个跨学科的研究项目，在该项目中，牛津的少数家庭设计并重复进行了关于厨房微生物群的实验。这些实验探索了微生物群的组成和不同卫生做法的影响。该分析确定了公共微生物组研究的两个挑战：本地物种本体论与对微生物组的生态理解之间的不匹配，以及科学不确定性带来的困难。报告的方法能够让公众参与实验的设计和解释，并能处理开放研究产生的惊喜。将微生物视为生态系统揭示了抗生素和益生菌在家庭卫生方面的紧张关系。公共微生物组研究需要新的隐喻和可视化工具，以及对政治、经济和认知障碍的认识，这些障碍将构成承诺的测序民主化。这一结论呼吁进一步的跨学科和参与性微生物组研究，以指导这项新技术的出现。
Recent rapid increases in the capability and affordability of DNA sequencing have enabled scientists to map the microbiome and to identify its associations with a range of health conditions. Concerns are growing that missing microbes might be behind the current rise in inflammatory disease. Microbial absence and dysbiosis have been linked to a range of hygiene practices, fuelling popular anxiety and confusion about being both too clean and the risk of superbugs. A growing number of microbiology projects allow some publics to engage with DNA sequencing, and enable DIY experiments in microbiome management. Advocates promote this as the democratisation of sequencing. This paper outlines a new methodology for making the microbiome public, and explores the potential of thinking with microbes for social science research. It reports on an interdisciplinary research project, in which a small number of households in Oxford designed and conducted repeated experiments on their kitchen microbiome. These experiments explored the composition of the microbiome and the effects of different hygiene practices. The analysis identifies two challenges of public microbiome research: the mismatch between a vernacular species ontology and the ecological understanding of the microbiome, and the difficulties posed by scientific uncertainty. The reported methodology was able to engage publics in the design and interpretation of experiments, and to work with the surprises generated by open research. Thinking with microbes as ecologies revealed the tensions between an antibiotic and a probiotic approach to domestic hygiene. Public microbiome research needs new metaphors and visualisation tools, and an awareness of the political economic and epistemic barriers that will configure the promised democratisation of sequencing. The conclusion calls for further interdisciplinary and participatory microbiome research to guide the emergence of this new technology.