Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Making bio-objects mobile: behind the scenes of a translational stem cell banking consortium

  • Original Article
  • Published:
BioSocieties Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The concept of bio-objectification describes how the ‘raw materials’ of living cells and tissues are subject to both technical manipulations and ontological transformations to produce novel ‘bio-objects’ such as cell lines and transgenic animals. Bio-objects are conceptually fluid, but also subject to literal circulation through biobanks and repositories. Making bio-objects mobile means producing them in such a way that they are capable of travelling across jurisdictions, institutional boundaries, and of moving between public and private sectors. This paper uses one particular bio-object—the human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC), and a particular context, a European consortium dedicated to creating an open access repository of hiPSC—to explore what making mobilisable bio-objects entails. The bio-object not only has multiple strands of identity—legal, ethical, political, technical—but this identity is distributed across, and inscribed in, a variety of paper documents, digital records, as well as the biological material. Making bio-objects mobile means putting these heterogeneous components into circulation, which can entail travel through different infrastructures and at different speeds. Moreover, contemporary legal and ethical requirements for the use of human biomaterials require the formation of durable connections that tie bio-objects to places and persons of origin as a condition of mobility.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Directive 2004/23/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on setting standards of quality and safety for the donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of human tissues and cells.

  2. Research Ethics approval for this study was obtained from the Social Sciences and Humanities Inter-divisional Research.

    Ethics Committee (IDREC) of the University of Oxford (Ref no SSD/CUREC1A/14–205).

  3. The associated information sheet also explained that the cells would not be transplanted into any person or used for reproductive purposes, although they could be used in animal experiments.

  4. See e.g. Shapin (1989).

References

  • Biagioli, M., and M. Buning. 2019. Technologies of the Law/Law as a Technology. History of Science 57 (1): 3–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, N., and R. Williams. 2015. Cord Blood Banking—Bio Objects on the Borderlands Between Community and Immunity. Life Sciences, Society and Policy. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40504-015-0029-8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cambrioso, A., P. Bourett, P. Keating, and N. Nelson. 2017. Opening the Regulatory Black Box of Clinical Cancer Research: Transnational Expertise Networks and ‘Disruptive’ Technologies. Minerva 55: 161–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, P.N., M.S. Mayernik, A.L. Batcheller, G.C. Bowker, and C.L. Borgman. 2011. Science Friction: Data, Metadata and Collaboration. Social Studies of Science 41 (5): 667–690.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eriksson, L., and A. Webster. 2015. Standardising Work as Recursive Process: Shaping the Embryonic Stem Cell Field. New Genetics and Society 34 (1): 72–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, M. 2013. New Frontiers for Collaborative Research. Science and Translational Medicine 5: 216ed22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harmon, S.H.E. 2018. Responsible Regulation in Action? Responsible Research and Innovation and the European Bank for Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells. Law, Innovation and Technology 10 (1): 15–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hauskeller, C., and S. Weber. 2011. Framing Pluripotency: iPS Cells and the Shaping of Stem Cell Science. New Genetics and Society 30 (4): 415–431.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hinterberger, A., and N. Porter. 2015. Genomic and Viral Sovereignty: Tethering the Materials of Global Biomedicine. Public Culture 27 (2): 361–386.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmberg, T., N. Schwennesen, and A. Webster. 2011. Bio-objects and the Bio-objectification Process. Croatian Medical Journal 52: 740–742.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoyer, K., A. Tupasela, and M.B. Rasmusen. 2017. Ethics policies and ethics work in cross national genetic research and data sharing: Flows, non-flows, and overflows. Science, Technology and Human Values 42 (3): 381–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jha, A. 2011. Look, No Embryos! The Future of Ethical Stem Cells, The Guardian [online edition], 13th March 2011. Retrieved April 8, 2016 from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/mar/13/ips-reprogrammed-stem-cells.

  • Latour, B. 2004. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lezaun, J. 2006. Creating a New Object of Government: Making Genetically Modified Organisms Traceable. Social Studies of Science 36 (4): 499–531.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, D.N. 2003. Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Marelli, L. 2016. The Co-production of Scientific and Translational Induced Pluripotent Stem Reprogramming platforms. Governance Innovation in Cell Research. Unpublished PhD Thesis; European School of Molecular Medicine (SEMM), Italy.

  • Marelli, L., and G. Testa. 2017. Having a Structuring Effect on Europe: The Innovative Medicines Initiative and the Construction of the European Health Bioeconomy. In Bioeconomies: Life, Technology and Capital in the 21st Century, ed. V. Pavone and J. Goven, 73–10. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • McKernan, R., and F.M. Watt. 2013. What is the Point of Large-Scale Collections of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells? Nature Biotechnology 31 (10): 875–877.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meskus, M. 2018. Craft in Biomedical Research: The iPS Cell Technology and the Future of Stem Cell Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Metzler, I. 2012. On Why States Still Matter: In Vitro Fertilization Embryos Between Laboratories and State Authorities in Italy. In Bio-Objects: Life in the 21st Century, ed. N.S. Vermeulen, S. Tamminen, and A. Webster, 151–170. London: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milne, R. 2016. In Search of Lost Time: Age and the Promise of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Models of the Brain. New Genetics and Society 35 (4): 393–408.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mol, A. 1999. Ontological Politics: A Word and Some Questions. The Sociological Review 47: 74–89.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, M., C. Klein, N. Clemann, D.A. Collier, J. Hardy, B. Heiβerer, M.Z. Cader, M. Graf, and J. Kaye. 2015. StemBANCC: Governing Research Access to Material and Data in a Large Stem Cell Research Consortium. Stem Cell Reviews & Reports 11: 681–687.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, M., L.B. Moraia, and J.C. Steele. 2016. Traceability in Stem Cell Research: From Participant Sample to Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell and Back. Regenerative Medicine 11 (1): 73–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, M. 2017a. Infrastructural Expectations: Exploring the Promise of International Large-Scale Pluripotent Stem Cell Banks. New Genetics and Society 36 (1): 66–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, M. 2017b. “A Good Collaboration is Based on Unique Contributions from Each Side”: Assessing the Dynamics of Collaboration in Stem Cell Science. Life Sciences, Society and Policy 13: 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40504-017-0053-y.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrison, M. 2019. Making Cells Worthwhile: Calculations of Value in a European Consortium for Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Banking. Science as Culture 28 (1): 46–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nadim, T. 2016. Data Labours: How the Sequence Databases GenBank and EMBL-Bank Make Data. Science as Culture 25 (4): 496–519.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rader, K. 2004. Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Research, 1900–1955. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shapin, S. 1989. The Invisible Technician. American Scientist 77 (6): 554–563.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheller, M., and J. Urry. 2006. The New Mobilities Paradigm. Environment and Planning A 38: 207–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Star, S.L., and K. Ruhleder. 1996. Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces. Information Systems Research 7 (1): 111–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stephens, N., and R. Dimond. 2015. Unexpected Tissue and the Biobank that Closed: An Exploration of Value and the Momentariness of bio-objectification Processes. Life Sciences, Society and Policy. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40504-015-0032-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vermeulen, S.Tamminen, and A. Webster (eds.). 2012. Bio-Objects: Life in the 21st Century. London: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vertesi, J. 2014. Seamful Spaces: Heterogeneous Infrastructures in Interaction. Science, Technology, & Human Values 39 (2): 264–284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waldby, C., and R. Mitchell. 2006. Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism. Durham, DC: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Webster, A. 2012. Introduction: Bio-objects: Exploring the Boundaries of Life. In Bio-Objects: Life in the 21st Century, ed. N.S. Vermeulen, S. Tamminen, and A. Webster, 1–12. London: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The initial research leading to these results has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under Grant Agreement No. 115439 (StemBANCC), resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and EFPIA companies in kind contribution. This publication reflects only the author’s views and neither the IMI JU nor EFPIA nor the European Commission are liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. Further work on this publication was carried out with the support of the Economic and Social Research council grant “Biomodifying technologies and experimental space: organisational and regulatory implications for the translation and valuation of health research” (Grant No. ES/P002943/1). I would like to thank Andrew Webster and Luca Marelli for helpful discussions on earlier drafts of this manuscript, and the four anonymous peer reviewers for their constructive input.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX), Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Room 10.27c, Ewert House, Ewert Place, Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 7DD, UK

    Michael Morrison

  2. Associete of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSiS), School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, 64 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PN, UK

    Michael Morrison

Authors
  1. Michael Morrison
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Morrison.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Morrison, M. Making bio-objects mobile: behind the scenes of a translational stem cell banking consortium. BioSocieties 17, 145–168 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-020-00207-3

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-020-00207-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation