 Making DNA and its becoming an experimental commodityDominic J. Berry LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library Abstract: This paper pursues the history of biology and technology in tandem. It focuses on DNA’s materiality regardless of informational properties. My emphasis on ‘making’ integrates attention to cultures of work in material histories of biology with analyses of the development of technical apparatuses and machines. When it comes to the history of DNA synthesis our materials are as much chemical as they are biological, which means that there is really a third history present, one that also needs to be drawn in, but on its own terms. I demonstrate the ways in which different chemistries have been combined with different technologies, all together affording different arrangements of personnel and biological science. It is a history of how synthesised DNA first came to be, became desired, and became a commodity, available for inclusion in a wide variety of experiments and experimental systems. This method could be replicated for other ‘experimental commodities’. Keywords: synthetic biology; DNA synthesis; biological engineering; chemistry; commodification (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in History and Technology, 27, January, 2020, 35(4), pp. 374 - 404. ISSN: 0734-1512 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:102532 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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