Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
medicine. This applicability is achieved at least in part by creating a
space that is designed and operated to produce this value.
Thomas Gieryn has commented that “built places materialize identi-
ties for the people, organizations, and practices they house. Through
their very existence, outward appearances, and internal arrangements of
space, research buildings give meanings to science, scientists, disciplines,
and universities.”
17
This is an apt description of the two buildings com-
prising the Broad Institute. The segregation and spatial organization of
different kinds of practices promotes a particular vision of biological
work. First, it renders some practices largely invisible, deeming them
beyond the boundaries of “real” biological practice. Second, the archi-
tecture of 7CC denotes a vision of collaboration between biologists and
computer scientists: through the mixing of their spaces into one another,
the observer is given the impression that the two different sorts of prac-
tices are collaborating harmoniously. Gieryn argues that people are de-
signed along with the walls and windows—that spaces give people iden-
tities as particular kinds of workers and particular kinds of knowledge
producers. The spaces of 320 Charles identify those that work there
as technicians, data producers, and shop-fl oor managers; the design of
7CC suggests academic science, knowledge work, and even medicine.
Lander's notion of the “transparency of discovery” means a constant
sharing and movement between wet and dry spaces at 7CC. “Our re-
search only works in the spirit of collaboration,” Alan Fein (a deputy
director of the Broad) comments. “Everybody needs to be accessible,
transparent, visible.”
18
If everyone can see what everyone else is do-
ing, they will be able to understand one another's work and collaborate
most effectively, the designers hope. This is a vision of a new, integrated,
hyper-productive biology. It is also a highly sellable biology.
The Lab That Changed the World
But the division into higher and lower, front and back, obscures the full
range of identities and practices that this biology relies on. Bioinformat-
ics depends just as much on the productions of 320 Charles as it does on
the work of 7CC. Let's now examine the back region of the Broad in or-
der to describe what goes on there in more detail. What we will discover
is that new modes of valuable work are emerging in this sort of activity.
Here, principles of management and effi cient manufacturing have been
rigorously applied to the making of biological data. This is certainly
production, but it is not mere production: it requires careful attention
to the organization of space, people, and technology. Ultimately, these
