Facts

Contact person:
Kristofer Hansson
Financer:
  • Swedish Research Council
Responsible at MaU:
Kristofer Hansson
Project members:
Affiliated:
  • Nik Brown
  • SATSU – Science & Technology Studies Unit
  • University of York
  • York
  • UK
Time frame:
01 January 2020 - 31 December 2023
Faculty/department:
Research subject:

About the project

Projects with new so-called biomodifying technologies are planned and carried out at universities throughout the world. With these technologies, the laboratory becomes central. The latest tech is used to e.g., modify the human genome, develop somatic reversed stem cells or to create 3D-printed organs. The common denominator for the technologies is that they enable alleviating or curing interventions, directed at the individual patient. But they are also technologies posing new questions to labs and researchers about responsibility for innovations and developments based on these new technologies. This responsibility makes visible the often-opaque cultural practices, norms, values, and ideals that exist in the everyday of the laboratory.

This ethnological research project identifies, examines, and explains how these cultural practices are expressed in the interface between the lab and society - as well as what norms, values and ideals about risk and ethics are (re-)produced in the everyday of lab personnel (postdocs, doctoral students and lab assistants) and PI’s. We also engage a broader perspective on how visions, ideals and actual, concrete biomodifying innovations work together to create norms on mental- as well as physical, health and functionality in humans.