CAREER: Reconfiguring Life: Care and control in bioengineering

本提案部分由伦理与责任研究计划资助。人们越来越有兴趣促进围绕新生物技术的负责任的研究和创新，目的是培育更具社会活力和包容性的技术。这个CAREER项目特别关注护理在生物工程负责任创新中的作用。它记录了“生物铸造厂”的成长和发展，这是一种在学术和工业环境中建造的用于高通量设计和基因工程的新型设施。生物铸造厂致力于为广泛的研究和工业部门制造生物工程分子、材料和生物体，并将自己定位为能够为更加以生物为基础的经济做出重大贡献。本研究使用定性和人种学方法在不同尺度上追踪生物铸造厂的“护理政治”：确定在建立和运营生物铸造厂的日常实践中，护理的多种表现方式，以及指导生物铸造厂投资和治理的更广泛的价值。这些发现被用于设计和测试工具，以帮助生物铸造从业者和生物医学工程本科学生以更明确和有意的方式重新定义护理和责任。这些努力的长期目标是帮助将生物工程教育和实践的文化转变为更具包容性和可持续性的结果。利用通过访谈、实地考察和参与者观察收集的定性数据，该项目有三个目标：(1)追踪高通量基因工程设施建设中的护理实践；(2)研究这些设施建设的更广泛的社会和政治背景，以及这些背景如何影响治理愿景；(3)开发实验工具和实践，以重新塑造生物铸造厂的治理。该项目建立在科学技术研究（STS）学者对护理实践和政治日益增长的兴趣的基础上，在这种情况下，将新兴技术治理的工作联系起来，以推进治理的理论和实践。研究结果将为当代高风险生物工程企业不断变化的实践、关系和责任提供丰富的描述。该项目将通过开发专门以护理为中心的干预措施，深化现有负责任的研究和创新举措的方法论工具箱。它还有助于正在进行的关于STS在参与和塑造新兴技术方面的作用的方法讨论。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。

This proposal was funded in part by the Ethical and Responsible Research Program.There is growing interest in promoting responsible research and innovation around new biotechnologies, with the aim of fostering more socially robust and inclusive technologies. This CAREER project focuses specifically on the role of care in responsible innovation for bioengineering. It documents the growth and development of "biofoundries," a new type of facility for high-throughput design and genetic engineering being built in academic and industry settings. Biofoundries are working to make bioengineered molecules, materials and organisms for a wide range of research and industry sectors, and are positioning themselves as being able to make significant contributions to a more bio-based economy. This research uses qualitative and ethnographic methods to trace the "politics of care" in biofoundries at different scales: identifying the many ways care is manifest in the day-to-day practices of setting up and running a biofoundry, as well as the broader values guiding investment in and governance of biofoundries. These findings are being used to design and test tools to help biofoundry practitioners and undergraduate biomedical engineering students reconceptualize care and responsibility in more explicit and intentional ways. The long-term goal of these efforts is to help transform the culture of bioengineering education and practice towards more inclusive and sustainable outcomes.Using qualitative data collected through interviews, site visits and participant-observation, this project has three objectives: (1) to trace care practices in the building of high-throughput facilities for genetic engineering, (2) to examine the broader social and political contexts within which these facilities are being built, and how these are shaping visions of governance, and (3) to develop experimental tools and practices for re-shaping governance in and of biofoundries. This project builds on growing interest in practices and politics of care by science & technology studies (STS) scholars, in this case making connections with work on the governance of emerging technologies to advance theory and practice of governance. Research findings will generate a rich portrait of changing practices, relationships and accountabilities in a contemporary, high-stakes bioengineering venture. This project will deepen the methodological toolbox of existing responsible research & innovation initiatives, by developing interventions centered specifically around care. It also contributes to ongoing methodological discussions regarding the role of STS in engaging with and shaping emerging technologies.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.