Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 3.2 Exterior view from street of Broad Sequencing Center, 320 Charles Street, Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts. (Photograph by author, April 2008.)
several weeks before I summoned the courage to enter by a door other
than the one immediately adjacent to my offi ce for fear of becoming
embarrassingly lost in the interior. Rubber fl ooring, uniformly white
walls, and metal staircases add to the provisional feel of the place. If
7CC is a consulting offi ce, 320 Charles reminds one of nothing more
than a manufacturing plant. Although there is offi ce space, it is pushed
toward the edges of the building. The largest, and most central, room
in the building is the cavernous space housing the sequencing machines.
Large ventilation pipes fi tted across the length of the room maintain air
quality and temperature at precisely monitored levels. The only notice-
able motion comes from an electronic ticker-tape display on the back
wall that scrolls the current average length of the sequencing runs in red
and green letters.
The two main buildings of the Broad Institute represent different
forms of biological practice and serve different scientifi c ends. It is use-
ful here to draw on the sociology of Erving Goffman. Goffman's analy-
sis of “region behavior” draws a distinction between the “front region,”
in which a social performance is given, and the “back region,” where
the performer can “drop his front.” 10 It is in the back region that a good
deal of hidden work is performed—work that is necessary for main-
Search WWH ::




Custom Search