A combination lamb brooder and ewe feeder

Published October 1952. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalo

What is a Humanized Mouse? Remaking the Species and Spaces of Translational Medicine

Copyright © 2012 SAGE Publications. Author's draft version; post-print. Final version published by Sage available on Sage Journals Online http://online.sagepub.com/This article explores the development of a novel biomedical research organism, and its potential to remake the species and spaces of translational medicine. The humanized mouse is a complex experimental object in which mice, rendered immunodeficient through genetic alteration, are engrafted with human stem cells in the hope of reconstituting a human immune system for biomedical research and drug testing. These chimeric organisms have yet to garner the same commentary from social scientists as other human–animal hybrid forms. Yet, they are rapidly being positioned as central to translational medicine in immunological research and pharmaceutical development. This article explores the complex relations between species and spaces they seek to enact. Humanizing mice simultaneously moves these animal forms towards the intimate geographies of corporeal equivalence with humans and the expansive geographies of translational research. These multiple trajectories are achieved by the way humanized mice function as both uncertain ‘epistemic things’ and as expansive ‘collaborative things’, articulating mouse genetics with other research, notably stem cell science. In the context of post-genomics, their indeterminacy is critical to their collaborative value; their expansive potential follows as much from their biological openness as from specific expectations. Yet, these new research organisms have both accumulative and disruptive capacities, for there are patterns of interference between these trajectories, remaking boundaries between experimental practices and clinical contexts

Human cloning laws, human dignity and the poverty of the policy making dialogue

BACKGROUND: The regulation of human cloning continues to be a significant national and international policy issue. Despite years of intense academic and public debate, there is little clarity as to the philosophical foundations for many of the emerging policy choices. The notion of "human dignity" is commonly used to justify cloning laws. The basis for this justification is that reproductive human cloning necessarily infringes notions of human dignity. DISCUSSION: The author critiques one of the most commonly used ethical justifications for cloning laws – the idea that reproductive cloning necessarily infringes notions of human dignity. He points out that there is, in fact, little consensus on point and that the counter arguments are rarely reflected in formal policy. Rarely do domestic or international instruments provide an operational definition of human dignity and there is rarely an explanation of how, exactly, dignity is infringed in the context reproductive cloning. SUMMARY: It is the author's position that the lack of thoughtful analysis of the role of human dignity hurts the broader public debate about reproductive cloning, trivializes the value of human dignity as a normative principle and makes it nearly impossible to critique the actual justifications behind many of the proposed policies

Regulating ‘respect’ for the embryo: social mindscapes and human embryonic stem cell research in Japan

This article explores the relationship between the science community and the bioethical regulation of human embryonic stem cell research (hESR) in the laboratory and in daily life in Japan. It develops a perspective that takes into account the diversity of views among principle investigators (PIs) and scientists working in the laboratory. Deploying Eviatar Zerubavel’s notion of social mindscapes and the notion of mindsets, I elucidate the relationships between the personal and the professional, scientists and the public. Introducing the concept of mindset switching, I argue that scientists’ views of embryonic substances cannot be understood adequately in terms of the rhetoric of boundary making alone. The use of cognitive notions of social mindscape applied to situations in the life of scientists has far-reaching consequences for both the implementation of research regulation involving respect for the embryo and for the public discussion on the use of embryonic substances. The article is based on interviews with over thirty scientists working with embryos and stem cells during fieldwork visits in eleven science institutes in Japan