“Your problem is that your face reveals everything when you are lying”: making and remaking of conduct in South Korean life sciences

In the emerging context of the knowledge economy, exploring how both the global economic environment and national context influence local research practices is of crucial importance. The Hwang scandal in South Korea illustrates a typical research practice geared towards the exploitation of labor and human resources in response to, and as part of, global competition in the life sciences. This article argues that the ongoing exploitation of young talent and labor in the Korean academic community, even after the scandal, represents the combined outcome of actors' interests, organizational power structures, and strategies of survival in a global knowledge system that constrains the conductivity of actors. Competition and exploitation are internalized in the self-governance of the life sciences, despite avowed commitments to more rational and democratic research practices at the institutional level

Shifting paradigms? Reflections on regenerative medicine, embryonic stem cells and pharmaceuticals

Will human embryonic stem (hES) cells lead to a revolutionary new regenerative medicine? We begin to answer this question by drawing on interviews with scientists and clinicians from leading labs and clinics in the UK and the USA, exploring their views on the bench-bedside interface in the fields of hES cells, neuroscience and diabetes. We employ Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital in order to understand stem cell science and cell transplantation. We also build on research on the sociology of expectations, and explore expectations of pharmaceutical approaches in hES research through our concept of 'expectational capital'. In the process we discuss emerging expectations within stem cell research, most especially the 'disease in a dish' approach, where hES cells will be used as tools for unravelling the mechanisms of disease to enable the development of new drugs. We argue that experts' persuasive promises advance their interests in the uncertain stem cell field, and explore how this performative strategy might stabilise the emerging 'disease in a dish' model of translational research

Shifting paradigms? Reflections on regenerative medicine, embryonic stem cells and pharmaceuticals

Will human embryonic stem (hES) cells lead to a revolutionary new regenerative medicine? We begin to answer this question by drawing on interviews with scientists and clinicians from leading labs and clinics in the UK and the USA, exploring their views on the bench-bedside interface in the fields of hES cells, neuroscience and diabetes. We employ Bourdieu's concepts of field, habitus and capital in order to understand stem cell science and cell transplantation. We also build on research on the sociology of expectations, and explore expectations of pharmaceutical approaches in hES research through our concept of 'expectational capital'. In the process we discuss emerging expectations within stem cell research, most especially the 'disease in a dish' approach, where hES cells will be used as tools for unravelling the mechanisms of disease to enable the development of new drugs. We argue that experts' persuasive promises advance their interests in the uncertain stem cell field, and explore how this performative strategy might stabilise the emerging 'disease in a dish' model of translational research