Brown, Nik; Faulkner, Alex; Kent, Julie and Michael, Mike. 2006. Regulating Hybrids: `Making a Mess' and `Cleaning Up' in Tissue Engineering and Transpecies Transplantation. Social Theory & Health, 4(1), pp. 1-24. ISSN 1477-8211 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

This paper explores the institutional regulation of novel biosciences, hybrid technologies that often disturb and challenge existing regulatory frameworks. Developing a conceptual vocabulary for understanding the relationship between material and institutional hybrids, the paper compares human tissue engineering (TE) and xenotransplantation (XT), areas of innovation which regulators have sought to govern separately and in isolation from one another. Contrasting definitional boundaries and regulatory mechanisms partition them socio-institutionally. But despite these attempts at purification, TE and XT have proven increasingly difficult to tell apart in practical and material terms. Human and animal matters, cell cultures and tissue products have much greater corporeal connection than has been institutionally recognized, and are therefore a source of acute instability in the regulation of implants and transplants. This paper tells the story of how the messy worlds of TE and XT have leaked into one another, calling into question the abilities of regulation to adequately control hybrid innovations.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700062
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Sociology > Centre for Study of Invention and Social Process (CSISP) [2003-2015]
Dates:	Date Event February 2006 Published
Item ID:	2494
Date Deposited:	22 Jan 2010 10:31
Last Modified:	07 Jul 2017 11:12
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/2494

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