Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/49483

Title

Are you an object or a subject? Well ... I don't know ... what do you think? The laboratory as a super-organisation

Author(s)

Betta, Michela;  Jones, Robert;  Latham, James

Abstract

The systematic use of mice for research purposes began in 1929 in one of the oldest laboratories of modern science, the Jackson laboratory in Bar Harbour, Maine (USA), which was built to facilitate the study of the 'genetics of cancer in inbred strains of mice' (Knowles 1998, p. 116). But those years were not easy times for researchers, and so in order to maintain financial security the 'scientists undertook many activities to support their investigations into the genetic control of cancer, including the sale of their own research animals' (ibid.). It seems that in pre-war America scientists turned entrepreneurial out of necessity (see on the entrepreneurial bio-scientists Betta 2006; on the cultural shift in science Finkel 2005). Around 1998 the Jackson laboratory distributed two million manipulated mice per year. 'However, the scientific staff of the laboratory remained closely involved in ensuring the genetic quality of distributed strains' (ibid). Is the onco-mouse an animal, an artefact, or a tool? Undoubtedly, the onco-mouse is the product of primitive laboratory science as it first emerged in the 1920s, although it embodies a certain form of creativity and entrepreneurial style in an unusual place. By primitive laboratory science we mean little sophisticated laboratory science compared with what is currently at stake in the laboratories of the new genetic science, in which we witness an increased commercialisation of physical life in general, health, healthcare, and medicine. In the laboratories of the new genetics rules a new form of creativity, one which is capable of creating strong and durable objects, weak and revocable subjects, and interdependent objects-subjects. But what sort of entity is the onco-mouse? It seems to us that this entity will never escape the status that has been assigned to it by creative scientific zeal, and which results from a particular scientific approach towards nature; this approach has been made possible by a cultural change that helped to transform a creature into a novel system for the study of diseases. To implant cancer cells into an animal scientists have to increase the level of pain and unwell-being to it, something that must result from an economic attitude to life. Testing procedures sometimes presuppose the creation of platforms on which new drugs are applied and tested. This is the case of the oncomouse. The term onco-mouse describes a mutant mouse in which a specific gene is targeted for modification. This procedure results from a combination of techniques involving transgenic techniques (heterologous techniques) or mouse related techniques (homologous techniques). Scientists might decide to insert a certain gene resistant to antibiotics or other drugs; in this case the gene will not be expressed and the mouse is called knock-out mouse. Conversely, when a gene is inserted and expected to express, then the mouse is called knock-in mouse. Usually what scientists insert are embryonic stem cells (ES) linked to a gene. These mice are considered novel systems, in other words, they are research tools that can be acquired and sold to research institutions (OECD 1998).

Publication type

Conference paper

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology

Source

Paper presented at 'Beyond waltz: dances of individuals and organization', the 23rd European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium, Vienna, Austria, 05-07 July 2007

Publication year

2007

Keyword(s)

Animals;  Cancer research;  Ethics;  Genetic research;  Laboratory animals;  Mice;  Objectification;  Onco-mice;  Primitive laboratory science;  Research subjects;  Scientific history

Publisher

European Group for Organizational Studies

Publisher URL

http://www.egosnet.org/conferences/collo23/sub_program_43.shtml

Peer reviewed