Telling a story of body parts

Blog by Ann Lingard - Genomics Forum Bright Ideas Fellow

Would you donate your eyes, your brain, biopsy samples or an amputated limb? And why would you do it - for research, to help someone who needed new organs, for teaching purposes, or for display in a Museum? If you have donated bits of yourself, for any reason, would you like me to write the story of how and why you made this decision? And if you are long, long dead, would you mind if I tried to find out more about you, and wrote your story too?

Amongst the extraordinary collections at the Surgeons' Hall Museum there are skeletons, plaster-casts of faces, amputated limbs, fixed pathological tissues and foetuses, and a collection of surgeons' 'memorabilia' - drawings and tools of their trade - which help us to put in context just why some of the human specimens have ended up in Museum shelves. But 'specimen' is a dry word: these organs and bones were 'donated' by human beings, each of whom had a life, perhaps in a town, on a farm, perhaps with a family and friends; or perhaps he or she was ridiculed and despised.

Mon aventure écossaise chez les chercheurs en science sociale ...

 Blog post by Cécilia Claeys - Genomics Forum Bright Ideas Fellow

Coming from the South of France, I had some prejudices about Edinburgh: Wet, dark and cold! As a sociologist, I should have known that prejudices are a mistake, and indeed, I have spent two weeks with cool and rather sunny weather… But that was not enough to take me out of the Forum (except during the week-end!), because here is the brightest light of my journey.

When getting in, Margaret, the Administrator will give you the first friendly welcome. The place is cosy and seems quite. Despite, everybody is very busy here! European programs, publications, surveys, meetings, seminars, ... well just a day in the life of an ordinary research team? Not that sure! Because, at the Forum, there is no scientific routine. Interdisciplinary, of course, and ready to meet people from all disciplines, biological, sociological, medical, sciences, ... But, that is not enough, because here come also social and economic actors, and even artists. What for? To escape from scientific routine, for sure! 

As an environmental sociologist, my journey at the Forum was an opportunity to bring more sciences studies in my work, as knowledge, expertise and incertitude are central in the comprehension of the evolution of nature management. And so I did as I was able to access a wide range of scientific literature offering rich material to discuss with the researchers of the team.

Darwin, Dawkins and the Left

By Ken MacLeod - Genomics Forum Writer in Residence

A few months ago Chris Williams, an OU history lecturer and political activist whom I've known for years online, asked me to give this year's Darwin Memorial Lecture to the Leicester Secular Society. I suggested the topic because, a couple of years earlier, I'd put together a stash of notes and links for a blog post that I'd never quite got around to writing.

The event, at the Society's splendid Victorian red-brick Secular Hall on 13 February 2011, drew a large and lively audience, from that cross-section of radical England that you so often find in its socialist, secularist and peace movements. Their searching and informed questions often had me thinking fast on my feet.

Here's the gist of what I said - a longer version will no doubt appear on my own blog.

Show Time! ESRC Genomics Forum/Traverse Theatre Resident Playwright 2011

By Alison Caldecott - Genomics Forum Press and Communications Officer

My initial reaction to the idea that the subject of genomics can inspire creative works was, I must admit, one of skepticism.  But that was before I took on my new role as communications officer for the Genomics Forum.  Before I had been introduced to the Fourm writers in residence - Ken MacLeod and Pippa Goldschmidt and had a chance to relish a collection of genomics short stories by writers who had let their imaginations go wild on the bizarre sounding Zipper, Mad/Max, Hip/Hop, and Disheveled Zinc Finger genes.

Now that I have inherited a successful poetry competition attracting entries from across the globe, and learnt about the Forums visual artist in residence Alistair Gentry and designers Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and James King, the enthusiastic ambition of the Forum to work with a playwright seems entirely reasonable. And one that on past experience is likely to deliver some exceptional outputs.

Bright Ideas on the HFE Act 2008

I’ve been lucky this January to have a visit here at the Forum from friend and colleague Dr Malcolm Smith, currently a Claims Manager within the Legal Services Department of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Malcolm completed his PhD last year on the issue of ‘saviour siblings’ at Queensland University of Technology, and will be returning to Brisbane in just a few months’ time (floods permitting!) to take up a lectureship in Law. In the meantime he’s taken the opportunity to visit us here in Edinburgh as part of the Forum’s Bright Ideas Programme.

One of the main activities during Malcolm’s visit has been a workshop we co-organised on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, which took place at the Forum on 20 January. This followed two other events on the HFE Act which I’ve organised in my time at the Forum – the first a major ‘retrospective’ on the policymaking process leading to the Act (London, March 2009), and the second a smaller workshop at the EGN Conference in Cardiff (October 2009).

Judging at the iGEM Jjamboree

As well spending a few weeks at Arizona State University, my State-side travels this autumn included a trip to Boston for the 2010 iGEM Jamboree. iGEM is a global undergraduate competition in synthetic biology that culminates with a ‘Jamboree’ at MIT every November. The goal for teams entering this competition is to design, build and characterize new genetic circuits that carry out specified functions. To do this, teams must use ‘BioBricks’ from MIT’s Registry of Standard Biological Parts, and must in turn contribute new, characterized biological parts to this open-source community repository.

A Townhall Meeting in the Global Townhall

After a successful ESRC Genomics Network conference in Pairs, Prof Steve Yearley, Genomics Forum blogs on the Closing debate – How to Deliver the promise: Where to next?

The closing session of the conference was advertised as a townhall-style meeting, based on the US tradition of public meetings in which politicians and other public figures have to answer to remarks from the floor with no prior warning and no scripted questions. In the US these meetings conjure up the idea of a politician with their jacket off, sleeves rolled up, engaging ferociously with the audience.

Instead of President Obama or the Tea Party, we had four of our own public figures: Dr Gerardo Jiménez-Sánchez, chair of the OECD’s Working Party on Biotechnology; Rick Johnson, CEO of Global Helix LLC from the USA and a key figure in the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to OECD; Prof Joyce Tait, Scientific Advisor to Innogen; and Prof John Dupre, Director of Egenis. The session was energetically chaired by the OECD’s Iain Gillespie and, in true townhall style, there was no shortage of comments from the audience and some real clashes between speakers’ views.