*STS Circle at Harvard* [image: samuelevansresear/7D21F2C9.gif] * * *Joanna Radin * *University of Pennsylvania * * * on
*Frozen Human Tissue and the Problem of Interdeterminacy * Monday, October 24 12:15-2:00 p.m. 124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 100, Room 106 [image: samuelevansresear/7D21F2C9.gif] Lunch is provided if you RSVP. Please RSVP to sts <[email protected]>@hks.harvard.edu<[email protected]>by 5pm Thursday, October 20. * * *Abstract:* The International Biological Program (IBP,1964-1974) was a large-scale effort to take stock of the biosphere. Working within the ecological framework of the IBP and, with new access to industrial technologies of cold storage, certain human biologists endeavored to collect and freeze tissue from populations depicted as close to nature and endangered. In this talk I examine three episodes in the trajectory of these preserved bodily extracts -- the circumstances of their collection in the field, decades-long suspended animation in laboratory freezers, and contemporary re-animation. I track the shifting socio-technical practices applied to making cold blood into an enduring reservoir for knowledge production and the ethical problems posed by the indeterminate nature of this resource. *Biography*: Joanna Radin is a doctoral candidate in History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania where she is completing a dissertation titled "Life on Ice: Frozen Blood and Biological Variation in a Genomic Age, 1950-2010." Fundamentally, this work is about the relationship between changes in biomedical infrastructure and changes in concepts of what it has meant to be human. It is relevant to the challenges posed by efforts to use stored tissues for purposes of personalized (and often commercialized) genomics, epidemiology, and reproductive science and medicine. She has also published on the history of the FDA, nanotechnology and held fellowships at the Philadelphia Area Center for the History of Science and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. A complete list of STS Circle at Harvard events can be found on our website: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/sts/events/sts_circle/ Follow us on Facebook: STS@Harvard <http://www.facebook.com/HarvardSTS> You are currently subscribed to the Harvard STS Circle mailing list. [email protected] To unsubscribe, please click here: http://lists.ksg.harvard.edu/u?id=75176.c8dba4a21e684a2e8e9efff24641 0b59&o=57801&n=T&c=F&l=harvard-sts
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