From Animal to Artifice: An Ethnographic Investigation of Scientific Research in the Experimental Realm of Human Organ Replacement

美国的器官移植经常被描述为长期缺乏捐赠人体器官的困扰。作为回应，一系列科学家正致力于开发高度实验性的非人类替代品，作为缓解这种稀缺性的一种手段。目前该领域主要有两种发展趋势：第一种是拳头大小的可植入机械装置，将完全取代人体器官，心脏是一个特别明显的焦点；第二种是异种移植，即试图开发转基因动物物种(主要是猪)，其器官可以被剔除用于人类植入。在这个研究项目中，莱斯利·A·夏普博士将研究科学想象力如何在这两个经常相互竞争的轨迹中发挥作用。也就是说，她将研究参与其中的科学家如何理解目前处于实验开发阶段的替代技术的社会、临床和伦理后果。作为一项人类学研究，研究人员将利用人种学的调查方法(包括参与者观察、结构化访谈和生活史)，以揭示参与其中的科学家如何设想实验室工作及其更广泛和长期的社会后果。该项目在几个方面具有可比性。首先，它考察了科学轨迹的性质(一方面涉及惰性材料，另一方面涉及动物物种)如何塑造社会意义，进而塑造伦理思维。其次，它以美国和英国的实验室为目标，作为一种手段，调查国家的担忧是否会影响这两个高度实验性的科学领域的发展轨迹。因此，该项目试图解决目前普遍存在的关于非人类形式器官替换的优点、困境和危险的假设的跨文化有效性。最后，它将测试研究人员的培训领域、资历水平、年龄和/或性别是否影响他们的社会、临床和生物伦理关切。因此，该项目试图为实验和科学发明的性质提供一个新的视角，超越目前的报道(特别是在大众媒体中)，几乎完全专注于新想法的神奇品质，而不关心参与其中的参与者如何思考他们工作的社会、医学和伦理层面。

Organ transplantation in the U.S. is frequently described as being plagued by a chronic shortage in donated human parts. In response, a range of scientists are engaged in developing highly experimental, non-human alternatives as a means to alleviate this scarcity. Currently two trajectories dominate the field: the first involves fist-sized, implantable mechanical devices that would fully replace human organs, with the heart defining an especially pronounced focus; the second is xenotransplantation, or attempts to develop transgenic animal species (primarily porcine) whose organs could be culled for human implantation. In this research project, Dr. Lesley A. Sharp will undertake research on how the scientific imagination figures within these two, often competing trajectories. That is, she will examine how involved scientists understand the social, clinical, and ethical ramifications of alternative technologies currently in experimental stages of development. As an anthropological study, the researcher will draw on ethnographic methods of investigation (including participant-observation, structured interviews, and life histories) as a means to uncover how involved scientists envision laboratory work and its broader and long-term social consequences. The project is comparative in several ways. First, it examines how the nature of the scientific trajectory (involving inert materials on the one hand, and animal species on the other) shapes social meanings and, in turn, ethical thinking. Second, it targets laboratory sites based within the U.S. and U.K. as a means to investigate whether national concerns shape the trajectories of these two highly experimental realms of science. As such, the project seeks to address the cross-cultural validity of currently universalized assumptions about the merits, dilemmas, and dangers of non-human forms of organ replacement. Finally, it will test to see whether the field of training, level of seniority, age, and/or gender of researchers affects their social, clinical, and bioethical concerns. The project thus seeks to offer a fresh perspective on the nature of experimentation and scientific inventiveness, one that extends beyond current coverage (particularly in the mass media) that focuses almost exclusively on the miraculous qualities of new ideas without concern for how involved actors think about the social, medical, and ethical dimensions of their work.