Cultures of Stem Cell Research

近二十年来，干细胞研究一直受到科学、伦理和法律方面的关注。此外，干细胞疗法对医学实践和未来的生物科学有着广泛的影响，但在诊所和实验室中重要的文化差异仍未得到充分分析。本项目重点关注干细胞研究的兴起和三个不同实验室的认知文化，这些实验室将干细胞研究转化为前沿科学和干细胞疗法，因为它们正在向市场化的商业化政治文化转变。要调查的三个实验室在跨国供资和网络、循证实验的标准、更大的科学界的核查以及商业化程度方面各不相同。这个项目不是通过民族国家的视角来分析干细胞研究，而是关注一个国家内干细胞科学的文化差异。因此，它调查了广泛的设置，使知识的生产和流通可能在干细胞研究。该项目研究了在科学转向以市场为导向的政治文化背景下，在三个实验室中知识生产的机制。它有两个主要目标：(1)通过探索科学知识生产中文学、社会和物质技术部署的差异，调查三个实验室干细胞研究认知培养的差异。它探讨了知识生产机制的差异是否以及如何解释这三个实验室对认识论事物产生的不同认识论和社会反应。(2)以市场为导向的科学政治文化变迁对三大干细胞实验室的影响调查。因此，该项目探讨：(a)政治文化如何影响这三个实验室的实践，以及(b)国家和国际实验室网络是否以及如何对这些实验室的科学实践的可信度产生不同的影响，尽管它们位于同一监管制度下。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Stem cell research has been marked by scientific, ethical, and juridical concerns for nearly two decades. Additionally, stem cell therapy has wide-ranging implications for medical practice and for the future of bioscience, but important cultural differences in clinics and labs remain under-analyzed. This project focuses on the rise of stem cell research and epistemic cultures in three different labs that translate stem cell research into frontier science and stem cell therapies as they shift towards a market-oriented political culture of commercialization. The three labs to be investigated differ in terms of their transnational funding and networks, their standards for evidence-controlled experiments, their verification by the larger scientific community, and their level of commercialization. Instead of analyzing stem cell research through the lens of the nation-state, this project focuses on cultural differences of stem cell science within a nation. It thus investigates a broad range of settings that make knowledge production and circulation possible in stem cell research. This project investigates the mechanics of knowledge production in three laboratories in the context of the shift towards market-oriented political culture of science. It has two main objectives: (1) Investigation of differences in the epistemic cultures of stem cell research at the three laboratories by exploring differences in the deployment of literary, social, and material technologies in the production of scientific knowledge. It explores whether and how differences in the mechanics of knowledge production explain the differing epistemological and social responses towards the epistemic things produced at these three laboratories. (2) Investigation of the impact of the shifting market-oriented political culture of science on the three stem cell laboratories. The project, thus, explores: (a) how political culture has impacted the practices of the three laboratories, and (b) whether and how the national and international networks of the laboratories have led to differential impact on the credibility of the scientific practices at those laboratories despite their being located within the same regulatory regime.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.