Doctoral Dissertation Research: Stringing Life Together: Bioinformatics in the Post-Genomic Age

博士论文研究：将生命串联起来：后基因组时代的生物信息学

• 批准号: 0724669
• 负责人: Peter Galison
• 金额: $ 0.8万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-01 至 2008-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0724669&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Stringing; Life

Introduction: Bioinformatics is the discipline that grew up in response to this digital 'population explosion.' Its practitioners aim to use the tools of information and communications technology and computer science to store, share, manipulate, and make useful this vast amount of biological data. As the sequencing of genes and proteins continues apace, bioinformatics provides ways to synthesize, organize, and use this proliferation of data - a new 'theoretical biology' for tracking populations and discovering drugs. In examining this discipline, this dissertation will combine multi-sited ethnography (Cambridge, Massachusetts and New Delhi, India) with archival research to reveal how bioinformatics has become a plausible and effective mode of investigating and understanding life. The project will examine the ways in which bioinformatics has become enmeshed with information and communication technology, global electronic and scientific networks, the vision of the Human Genome Project, and the commerce of biotechnology. It will be argued that bioinformatics goes beyond a metaphorical or actual conflation of life and information; its tools and practices represent life as a disembodied, manipulable, one-dimensional string. These strings encode specific concepts of what constitutes life and how humans are related to one another - bioinformatics is not culturally inert. Intellectual merit: This project will contributing to our understanding of how computing, information and communications technology, and the biotechnology industry, are impacting our understanding of life, and the dynamics of global bioscience. In addition, this project will explore the practices of a hybrid scientific discipline (biology + computer science) - the increasingly prevalent interdisciplinarity in contemporary science has not been given significant attention in science and technology studies. Broader impact: The project will shed light on the knowledge-making practices of a field of contemporary science with many implications for twenty-first century medicine and society. This critique will reveal what is elided and obscured in a bioinformatic approach to life and suggest ways in which other, equally productive, means of investigating the living world might become plausible.

简介：生物信息学是一门为应对数字“人口爆炸”而发展起来的学科。其实践者的目标是使用信息和通信技术以及计算机科学的工具来存储、共享、操纵和利用这些海量的生物数据。随着基因和蛋白质测序的继续快速进行，生物信息学提供了合成、组织和使用这种激增的数据的方法--一种用于跟踪种群和发现药物的新的“理论生物学”。在考察这一学科时，本论文将结合多地点的民族志(剑桥、马萨诸塞州和印度新德里)和档案研究来揭示生物信息学如何成为一种可信而有效的调查和理解生命的模式。该项目将研究生物信息学如何与信息和通信技术、全球电子和科学网络、人类基因组计划的愿景以及生物技术的商业联系在一起。有人会争辩说，生物信息学超越了生命和信息的隐喻或实际混合；它的工具和实践将生命表示为一根无实体的、可操纵的一维弦。这些字符串编码了生命的组成以及人类如何相互联系的特定概念--生物信息学在文化上并不是惰性的。智力价值：这个项目将有助于我们理解计算、信息和通信技术以及生物技术产业如何影响我们对生命的理解以及全球生物科学的动态。此外，该项目将探索混合科学学科(生物学+计算机科学)的实践--当代科学中日益普遍的跨学科性质在科学和技术研究中并未得到显著重视。更广泛的影响：该项目将阐明当代科学领域的知识创造实践，这一领域对21世纪的医学和社会具有许多影响。这一批评将揭示在生物信息学的生命方法中遗漏和遮蔽了什么，并提出了其他同样富有成效的研究生命世界的方法可能变得可信的方法。