Biomedicine in museums

I’m nurturing a crush on lab-on-a-chip technology! I’m browsing issues of the journal Lab on a Chip,

(cover and inner cover of LOC, vol. 7 (9), 2007)

reading about all possible kinds of technologies of miniaturization for chemistry, biology, medicine and bioengineering.

My favourite topic is biomolecular motors, like bacterial flagellar motors (which cannot be used in vitro on a chip yet), kinesin linear motors, DNA motors, etc. Much of it is futuristic, of course: “Thus far”, says a recent review article, “the use of molecular motors as onboard devices for chip-based platforms is fairly limited” (D. Spetzler et al., ‘Recent developments of bio-molecular motors as on-chip devices using single molecule techniques’, Lab Chip, vol.7: 1633 – 1643, 2007).

But such sobering evaluations from the pundits cannot really curb my imagination. In my fantasy, I put a variety of biomolecular motors onboard hybrid material chips and implant them in the transhuman bodies of the future, where they do all kinds of microfluidic tricks, pumping signaling molecules around artifically grown organs, and so forth.

I don’t think I’m alone having such futuristic fantasies. Maybe lab-on-a-chip technology is a kind of bio-Meccano for the 21C ‘transhuman imagination’ (cf. Keith Ansell-Pearson, Deleuze and philosophy: the difference engineer, 2002, p.194).

Meccano, the classic assemblage toy kit, invented in 1901 and manufactured from 1908,

trained the modernist creative mind. (Not at all like Lego, the soft, plastic unit-size cubicles designed for kids at a time when modernism was already waning). Meccano was a serious kit, made for teenagers and grown-ups alike who dreamt of a utopian mechanized industrial civilization. Generations of mechanical engineers grew up with Meccano.

I’m eagerly waiting for Dolomite, Microfluidic ChipShop, Micronit Microfluidics and other lab-on-a-chip manufacturers to produce the 21st century counterpart of the classic Meccano for the garage biotech amateur market.

Blog (and other) writers could learn from Doris Lessing, whose Nobel lecture (alas, she’s not coming to Stockholm) was released a few hours ago:

Writers are often asked, How do you write? With a processor? an electric typewriter? a quill? longhand? But the essential question is, “Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write? Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas – inspiration. If this writer cannot find this space, then poems and stories may be stillborn. When writers talk to each other, what they ask each other is always to do with this space, this other time. “Have you found it? Are you holding it fast?”

(from nobelprize.org)

I wonder — could it be the case that this particular attentive, listening space which Doris Lessing is talking about is actually destroyed by the hyperlinking-frantic blog medium?

I think it would be worthwhile to think a little more about ephemera in a contemporary biomedical context (cf. yesterday’s post + Jessica’s and Mike’s comments to it).

The term ‘ephemera’ (n. pl. of ephêmeros = short-lived) is often used by collectors for documents that were produced for the moment and not for long shelf-life: posters, recipes, advertisements, pamphlets, postcards, stamps, labels, etc. Ephemera have always been favourite objects of collectors; e.g., in a medical history context the William H. Helfand collection of proprietary health pamphlets and his collection of pharmaceutical trade cards are famous, and have been shown in several temporary displays, e.g. the exhibition ‘Here Today, Here Tomorrow … Varieties of Medical Ephemera’ at the National Library of Medicine in 1995.

Biomedical material culture also has its durables and its ephemera. A hundred (or even just fifty) years ago, most laboratory utensils were constructed from durable materials and were made to last. One was supposed to wash them, sterilize them and use them over and over again. Our collections are filled with such durables, made of brass, glass, stainless steel, hardwood, ceramics, etc.

Today’s laboratories, on the other hand, are filled with short-lived things made of plastic to be used for the moment. Lots of disposable plastic items: cups and caps, centrifuge tubes, suction catheters, syringes, culture flasks, cover slips, urine collection bags, vials, gloves, petri dishes, etc. etc., to be used once and then thrown out. To the extent that contemporary biomedicine could be described as an ephemeral culture.

To the material ephemerality of the lab could be added a documentary ephemerality, for example in the form of web-based electronic publications instead of books and bound journal volumes. And even the laboratory itself is becoming ephemeral and disposable: whereas the traditional lab has concrete walls, floors, benches and centrifuges, lab-on-a-chip technology represents the ultimate ephemeralization of the biomedical lab space (Richard Buckminster Fuller seems to have used the term ‘ephemeralization‘ in a somewhat different sense).

So I would like to see a collection and exhibition of biomedical ephemera — not of tradecards and pamphlets, but of Eppendorf tubes and plastic tubings mixed with lab websites and felt-tip pens.

I’ve followed Jessica JoslinPalmer’s blog Bioephemera for a while. I’m fascinated by her pictures and meandering thoughts. Many of her posts are inspiring for medical exhibition work (but she’s rarely to the point).

Eventually I found the answer in a February 2007 post, where she writes that Bioephemera is “straddling the awkward rift between biological specimen and art object, and doing so with grace and charm”. There you are! Self-characterisation sometimes hits the nail right on its head!

I wish, though, Jessica could raise herself above the charming stuff now and then and write more about ephemera as an analytical category  — close to curiosities, anecdotes, etc. — for making sense of the contemporary biomedical/biotech world.

Yet another wish-I-were-there seminar organised by the History of Medicine Divsion at NLM (NIH), namely on 12 December, when Peter Keating (U Quebec, Montreal) shall speak about “Who’s Minding the Data? A History and Sociology of Data Monitoring Committees in Clinical Cancer Trials”. Here’s Peter’s abstract:

Modern biomedicine is based on a number of novel institutions and practices running the socio-technical gamut from third-part payers to molecular biology. In order to function, these institutions and practices require a degree of formal and informal regulation that themselves form a spectrum from tacit conventions to legal mandates. In this we contribute to our ongoing investigation of these institutions and the forms of objectivity they generate by examining the emergence and development of DMCs and by discussing some of the issues and problems raised by this novel form of regulatory objectivity.

The seminar takes place in the Lister Hill Visitor’s Center on NIH Campus @ 2-3.30pm. Maybe they will video-record the seminar? Just to remind you all: Peter is co-author (with Alberto Cambrosio) of Biomedical Platforms (2003), one of the books that inspired our own research programme.

I’m thinking about one of the points that Joel Garreau brought up in an article titled “Is There a Future for Old-Fashioned Museums?” in The Washington Post two months ago (7 Oct).

Referring to Wiliam J. Mitchell’s (director of the MIT Design Laboratory) writings about the digitalization of urban environments, Garreau points out that “the vast choices available on the Web punish places that try to be all things to all people”, and favor instead small specialized “places for the cognoscenti”.

This tendency may be valid for museums too, he suggests:

The lesson for museums is that nimble upstarts can win big. Large, long-existing players complacent in their old formulas can die.

An encouraging prospect for small mammals like Medical Museion (and Jim’s place in Oxford) who are competing with Science Museum dinosaurs!

What attracts the cognoscente/connoisseur is of course the exquisite artefacts. So, in a world of big digitalizing-frantic omnibus museums, the specialized thing-centered museum will perhaps thrive. Maybe (so believes Garreau) because it speaks to the squirrel collector inside us.

Ever noticed that the URI for this blog is www.corporeality.net/museion? In fact, this is a badly chosen URI. Corporeality means (OED) “the quality or state of being corporeal; bodily form or nature; materiality”.

Blogs (and other kinds of websites) are good for writing about and visualising concepts, ideas and things. But they cannot really convey the ‘thingness’ of material things.

So, how can material things (e.g., from our collections) be rendered in digital media that operate on the premise of textuality and visuality only? Maybe through some kind of haptic-internet browser? Like the device on this demo on the International Society for Haptic‘s website.

Any specialist out there who can help us further?

Last month, the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford opened a new exhibition called “Small Worlds: the art of the invisible”. Made in collaboration with artist Heather Barnett and poet Will Holloway, the museum uses its collection of Victorian and Edwardian microscopical specimens to stage a display of images, animation and poetry. “Where else”, the Director, Jim Bennett, asks, “can you admire bespoke wallpaper and curtains while listening to poems derived on audio-handsets?”, and adds: “If you find yourself within reach, it’s worth a look, and a listen (we think)”.

The website pictures are alluring. The exhibition will continue till 6 April 2008. Regular opening hours are: Tuesday to Friday 12-5, Saturday 10-5, Sunday 2-5 (closed between Christmas and New Year). Until you have a chance to see it, you can send e-card greetings with specimen-pics to your friends.

Yet another event that shows that the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford is one of the most innovative STM-museums in the world.

As far as I can remember, my academic life has been a constant oscillation between grant applications and research evaluations. Now again. Tuesday we had a four hour long meeting with the Novo Nordisk Foundation reference group who commented on a 22 page report of the “Biomedicine on Display” project (which took at least a week to complete).

And now I’m working 18 hours a day to finish the pre-application for a new project, tentatively called “Material and Visual Culture of Contemporary Biomedicine” — deadline is tomorrow at 4pm!  So, not much sleep tonight — and no blog posts, except for this one. Added 30 nov: Finished the pre-application 18 minutes before dead-line. I guess there are probably 500 or more applicants to this 6th round of applications to the Danish National Research Foundation. Cross your fingers!

Most science, technology and medicine today originates in ‘Empire’, not in ‘Multitude‘. But there are interesting exceptions, for example The 2nd annual Maker Faire in the Bay Area in May, which seems to have been a feast for bottom-up inventive science and technology geeks — if you can trust this video (from Quest).

Make-zine described the Maker Faire as a “science fair, with beer”. Quest wrote:

It’s been called “Burning Man for science geeks.” The annual Maker Faire attracts thousands of amateur inventors and scientists, displaying their home-made prototypes and gadget hacks. In a world where the technological race is speeding up, the Maker movement has revealed that the do-it-yourself culture is in no danger of dying out.

Apparently not the boring standard ‘public understanding of science’ kind of event, but a truly sci&tech popular movement occasion. A sort of sci&tech of the ‘Multitude‘ pace Michael Hardt and Toni Negri.

But — most of the DIY things in the first two Maker Fairs seem to have been based on classical physical science and engineering. No biomedicine or biotech.

It makes me wonder (again) if there is any DIY-biotech movement out there? Where are the Steve Jobs of postgenomics fiddling around with recombinant technology and protein sequencers?

I shortly discussed the future possibilities of “garage biotech and medicine” with Steve Kurtz when he was in Copenhagen in early September. He suggested that the limiting factor for a DIY biotech and biomedicine movement is the costs of the reagents. In other words, it is not the complexity of the protocols, or the hardware, or the lack of ambitions that set the limits, but the fact that the reagents used, for example in basic recombinant technology, are so expensive that happy amateurs cannot afford them.

Is Steve really right? Does anyone have a price list at hand? Or are there other, and less pedestrian, reasons for the lack of biotech and biomedicine stands on the Maker Fair?