Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
65. Agar, “What Difference Did Computers Make?”
66. “Boundary objects are objects which are both plastic enough to adapt
to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust
enough to maintain a common identity across sites. . . . They have different
meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to
more than one world to make them recognizable means of translation” (Star
and Griesemer, “Institutional Ecology”). Here I am concerned not so much
with mediation of different social worlds as with mediation of different logi-
cal regimes; pictures are “boundary objects” that are generated from internal
(often database) representations of biological data but can also be interpreted
as biologically meaningful.
67. For example, Lenoir, “Science and the Academy”; November, “Digitiz-
ing Life,” iv.
68. It is of interest here to compare this argument with those by James C.
Scott and others about the role of visualization in the realms of governance
and power. Scott argues that certain mappings require a narrowing of vision
that “brings into sharp focus certain limited aspects of an otherwise far more
complex and unwieldy reality” in a manner that permits “knowledge, control,
and manipulation.” Scott,
Seeing Like a State
, 11. Visualization and representa-
tion techniques in bioinformatics can also be understood as ways of taming,
controlling, and ultimately remaking the spaces and territories of sequences.
69. Smith,
On the
Origin of Objects
, 16.
Conclusion
1. Goetz, “Craig Venter.”
2. Human Microbiome Project Consortium, “Structure, Function”; Human
Microbiome Project Consortium, “A Framework.”
3. Gilbert et al., “Meeting Report.”
4. This effect is beginning to be examined in the literature; see, for ex-
ample, Davies,
$1000
Genome
.
5. For examples of biologists making this connection, see Rothberg and
Leamon, “Development and Impact of 454 Sequencing”; Mardis, “Impact of
Next-Generation Sequencing Technology.”
6. For technical details, see Rothberg et al., “Integrated Semiconductor
Device.” A video describing the sequencing process can be found at http://www
.iontorrent.com/the-simplest-sequencing-chemistry/.
7. Wojcicki, “Deleterious Me.”
8. Most obviously, it raises a range of privacy issues concerning the use of
individual genetic data. In addition, this research would not be peer-reviewed
or subjected to institutional review through the usual channels. This fact poses
additional concerns about the possible uses of this research by 23andMe and
its customers.
9. Ewan Birney, “An Interview.” A similar story was related to me by Fran
Lewitter, who was recruited from BBN to the Brandeis biology department
in the late 1980s in order to upgrade its network connectivity. Interview with
Fran Lewitter, December 17, 2007, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
