[Leonardo/ISAST Network] The Global Genome by Eugene Thacker now available from Leonardo Book Series

[Leonardo/ISAST]

NOW AVAILABLE from the Leonardo Book Series and MIT Press

The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics and Culture
by Eugene Thacker

In the age of global biotechnology, DNA can exist as biological material in
a test tube, as a sequence in a computer database, and as economically
valuable information in a patent. In The Global Genome, Eugene Thacker asks
us to consider the relationship of these three entities and argues that --
by their existence and their interrelationships -- they are fundamentally
redefining the notion of biological "life itself." 

Biological science and the biotech industry are increasingly organized at a
global level, in large part because of the use of the Internet in exchanging
biological data. International genome sequencing efforts, genomic databases,
the development of World Intellectual Property policies, and the
"borderless" business of biotech are all evidence of the global
intersections of biology and informatics -- of genetic codes and computer
codes. Thacker points out the internal tension in the very concept of
biotechnology: the products are more "tech" than "bio," but the technology
itself is fully biological, composed of the biomaterial labor of genes,
proteins, cells, and tissues. Is biotechnology at all, he asks, or is it a
notion of "life itself" that is inseparable from its use in the biotech
industry?

The three sections of the book cover the three primary activities of
biotechnology today: the encoding of biological materials into digital form
-- as in bioinformatics and genomics; its recoding in various ways --
including the "biocolonialism" of mapping genetically isolated ethnic
populations and the newly pervasive concern over "biological security"; and
its decoding back into biological materiality -- as in tissue engineering
and regenerative medicine. Thacker moves easily from science to philosophy
to political economics, enlivening his account with ideas from such thinkers
as Georges Bataille, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Antonio Negri, and
Paul Virilio. The "global genome," says Thacker, makes it impossible to
consider biotechnology without the context of globalism

To order this book and to learn more about other titles in the Leonardo Book
Series please visit the Leonardo Book Series website at: http://lbs.mit.edu

MEMBER DISCOUNT! Leonardo/ISAST Associate Members are eligible for 20% off
all Leonardo Book Series titles and also receive a number of other
membership benefits! Visit http://leonardo.info/members.html for more
details.