Banking on the Human Genome Project

Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, The, May, 2007 by Matt Ratto, Anne Beaulieu

INSOFAR AS BIOBANKS MOVE the Human Genome Project (HGP) into a new phase, they link genetics, environment and function as tools for redefining health and illness. Insofar as biobanks link populations, individuals and nations, they represent new forms of governance and invoke concepts of genetic citizenship. Insofar as biobanks are sites of commercialization of genetic information, they may also be understood as involving a new kind of valorization of genetic knowledge. To better grasp this multiplicity, we analyze metaphors used to talk about biobanks, seeing metaphors as a powerful means of articulating these multiple roles. We draw on work that has analyzed the growing networks around genetics; what Abby Lippman has termed the process of geneticization of health (Lippman, 1992) and the study of digitization of the life sciences, specifically the way in which human bodies and behaviours are "translated" into arrangements of digital information (databases). We particularly rely on Eugene Thacker's notion of biomedia (Thacker, 2004) to understand the texture of the objects around which these infrastructures are set up. Our work therefore builds on these two dynamics: the increasing relevance of genetics to other spheres of life, and the increased degree to which these relations to genetics are instantiated with digital technologies and electronic networks. We have written about this as the informational turn in science (Beaulieu, 2004).

Informational "Turn" in Biology

Past work on the digitalization of the life sciences has addressed some of the particular practices through which human bodies and behaviours are "translated" into arrangements of digital information (databases). The conversion of the human body to discrete bits of information has often been analyzed as part of a shift in the practice of science towards the model of "harder sciences." Many scholars have characterized the move from the "wet" laboratories of traditional biology to the "dry" laboratories of "point-and-click biology" (Fujimura and Fortun, 1996; Lenoir, 1999; Thacker, 2004) as a response to the needs of biological researchers to match some of the characteristics of other scientific endeavours, notably those of physics (Kay, 2000). There have also been several insightful studies of these changes in the objects of science in relation to broader cultural change (van Dijck, 2005; Waldby, 2003).

Our aim in this paper is to analyze a different set of relations that become "informationalized." We focus on the role of informationalization in shaping the "benefits" of biological projects and in articulating the relationship between science, industry and government/policy-makers. The projects on which we focus can be understood as biobanks, large composites of digitalized genotypic (genetic) and phenotypic (environmental and lifestyle) information. (1) While past biobanks typically contained preserved samples of biological materials (e.g., blood, tumour cells, organs) for either research or therapeutic purposes, new biobanks are primarily considered to be digital databases, with the preservation and sampling of "wet" materials allocated to subordinate or adjacent organizations (Beaulieu, 2004; Gere and Gere, 2004).

Biobanks and Biomedia

Although still sometimes defined simply as "... collections of human biological material" (Hansson, 2001: v), most recent definitions ofbiobanks emphasize the ability to use biological materials for extraction of DNA and link it to other data about the person from whom the sample was taken (e.g., Einsiedel, 2003). Information about lifestyle and physiometric measurements such as blood pressure, height and weight can therefore be compared to genotype data in order to examine, for example, the relationship between environment and inheritance in the progression of particular conditions and diseases. As Einsiedel notes, writing on biobanks is a fairly recent phenomenon, with many texts originating as reports commissioned to address two projects in particular: the Icelandic Health Sector Database and UK Biobank (Einsiedel, 2003). Among these, Hilary Rose in particular demonstrates the ramifications of biobanks for ethical, economic, political, scientific and technical issues (Rose, 2001). Other key texts include Gisli Palsson's (2002; 2004) ethnographic work on the Icelandic project, and Tutton and Corrigan's (2004) collection, Genetic Databases: Socio-ethical Issues in the Collection and Use of DNA.

While the particular historical context of biobanks is an important element to consider, in this article we specifically want to explore their political, organizational and material dimensions. Our aim is to understand the shift in the constitution of biobanks, not simply as collections of blood samples but also increasingly as informational knowledge-making machines. The complex relationships between the biological and the informational made possible by biobanks open a novel space for social relations to develop between institutions, individuals and the state (see also Lopez and Robertson, this issue). It is this space that we set out to explore in this article, using and extending the notion of biomedia developed by Thacker (2004) to frame the assemblages of biology, technology and politics that are essential to genomics. We demonstrate the importance of biomedia in understanding the complex and novel issues involved in the construction of biobanks. As explored by Thacker, biomedia is about the extension of data types from the body and the way the digitization of biological materials works to further the possibilities associated with such materials. Thacker states: