MeST talk by Amy Clare:
Cypork Production: Examining CRISPR-Cas-mediated xenotransplantation science and life at the intersection of agriculture and biomedicine
Tuesday October 1th from 13-14 in room 10.0.11 at CSS, Øster Farimagsgade 5A, Everybody is welcome! Bring your own lunch
Xenotransplantation, the process of grafting or transplanting cells, tissues, or organs from one species to another, has been the subject of medical and scientific inquiry for many years. Most recently, xenotransplantation using pigs as a source animal has come back into the limelight as a potential “solution” to a public health crisis: the shortage of available human organs.
For scientists working in the field, the reinvigoration of xenotransplantation science is often chalked up to the development of the novel gene editing system CRISPR-Cas. Where they previously met technological and biological hurdles for pig-to-human transplantation, using CRISPR-Cas scientists claim they now have the capacity to make more precise edits in the porcine genome, introduce human transgenes, and remove harmful traits like Porcine Endogenous Retroviruses (PERVs) in their efforts to produce the most “transplantable pig” for humans. And despite the promissory tale of xenotransplantation science, the question remains: what does it mean for human-animal relations to create novel Gene Edited (GE) pigs as potential biomedical products?
Through a multi-sited ethnography, I trace how a research consortium in Germany carries out CRISPR-Cas mediated xenotransplantation science. In particular, I follow the daily practices (and emergent frictions) of a heterogeneous mix of actors as they create, care for, and experiment upon GE pigs. Although xenotransplantation is positioned as a biomedical intervention, through my fieldwork I showcase how it is deeply entangled with existing (livestock) agricultural infrastructures, personnel, and discourses and how these interactions (re)produce, change, or refute certain types of human-pig relations. In this way, I suggest that the production of GE pigs represents how novel human-animal relations are emerging at the intersection of agriculture and biomedicine.
Amy Clare is a Ph.D. candidate at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in the STS department. Her Ph.D. focuses on CRISPR-Cas mediated xenotransplantation science as a field at the intersection of biomedicine and agriculture, specifically showcasing how it is entangled with the political economy of animal agriculture. Her research interests include gene editing, human-animal relations, biopolitics, feminist science studies, and veterinary anthropology. She is visiting MeST and the TechnEmotion project this Fall..