An Ethnographic Study of Social Justice Issues in Community Synthetic Biology Labs

这个项目探索了传统科学实验室空间之外的科学公共空间，如家庭和社区实验室空间，业余科学家聚集在一起学习和创造。它专注于从事合成生物学新领域的公共实验室空间，该领域为遗传学和重组DNA技术科学带来了工程原理。调查员将在纽约市的Genspace和洛杉矶的洛杉矶生物黑客两个社区实验室进行采访。这项研究的目的是了解多样性和民主如何在合成生物学社区实验室空间中发挥作用，并确定如何通过合成生物学的实践和知识框架来解释这些价值观。这项研究的结果将有可能影响有关科学、伦理和公众参与的政策辩论和决策。它们将有助于为未来的项目提供信息，这些项目的目标是在合成生物学的特定领域内外创造更民主的科学。具体地说，PI将利用该项目和由此产生的结果来吸引学生、研究人员、教师和社区成员产生关于基于社区的科学的社会相关知识。技术总结本项目的目标是了解合成生物学家在社区和DIY(DIY)项目中投资的伦理和认识论价值。合成生物学仍然是一个新领域；它只有大约十年的历史。在此期间，它一直是许多研究和公众关注的主题。人们的注意力集中在对生物安全的担忧上，或者科学家人工创造新的生命形式是否符合伦理的问题上。科学研究学者已经开始努力理解这种新兴技术，它生产知识的方式，它回归简化论的方式，以及它与DIY社区的重叠。然而，对社会正义原则在该领域的作用的分析在很大程度上是空白的。通过提出关于如何使这些空间无障碍的问题，通过考虑谁传统上被排除在科学之外以及通过什么手段，该项目将极大地扩大合成生物学的学术范围，从民主价值观的角度提供对该领域的第一次分析。它有可能影响这些社区实验室空间的发展，以及它们发展的基本原则。更广泛地说，它将增加伦理学、治理研究、科学和技术研究以及科学本身的领域。

General Audience Summary This project explores public spaces for science that are outside of traditional scientific lab spaces, such as home based and community lab spaces, where amateur scientists gather together to learn and to create. It focuses on public lab spaces that engage in the new field of synthetic biology, which brings engineering principles to the sciences of genetics and recombinant DNA technologies. The investigator will conduct interviews in two community labs, Genspace in New York City and LA Biohackers in Los Angeles. The aim of the study is to understand how diversity and democracy are operative in synthetic biology community lab spaces, and to determine how these values are interpreted through the practice and knowledge frameworks of synthetic biology. The results of this research will have the potential to impact policy debates and decisions about science ethics and public participation. They will help inform future projects that aim to create more democratic sciences both within and beyond the specific field of synthetic biology. Specifically, the PI will use the project and the results generated from it to engage students researchers, faculty and community members in producing socially relevant knowledge about community-based science.Technical Summary The goal of this project is to understand the ethical and epistemological values that underlie the investments of synthetic biologists in community and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) projects. Synthetic biology is a still nascent field; it is only about a decade old. During this time, it has been the subject of much research and public attention. This attention has focused on concerns about biosafety or questions of whether it is ethical for scientists to synthetically create new life forms. Science studies scholars have begun to work on understanding this emergent technology, its ways of producing knowledge, its return to reductionism and its overlap with DIY communities. However, an analysis of the role of social justice principles in the field has been largely absent. By asking questions about how to make these spaces accessible, by considering who is traditionally kept out of science and by what means, this project would substantially expand the range of scholarship on synthetic biology in providing the first analysis of the field from the standpoint of democratic values. It has the potential to impact the development of these community lab spaces and the principles underlying their development. More broadly, it will add to the fields of ethics, governance studies, science and technology studies, and to the science itself.