Naked Genes

The molecular life sciences are making visible what was once invisible. Yet the morewe learn about our own biology, the less we are able to fit this knowledge into an integrated whole.Life is divided into new sub-units and reassembled into new forms: from genes to clones, fromembryonic stages to the building-blocks of synthetic biology. Extracted from their scientific andsocial contexts, these new entities become not only visible but indeed "naked": ready to assume anessential status of their own and take on multiple values and meanings as they pass from labs tocourts, from patent offices to parliaments and back. In Naked Genes, leading science scholar HelgaNowotny and molecular biologist Giuseppe Testa examine the interaction between these dramaticadvances in the life sciences and equally dramatic political reconfigurations of our societies. Theybring wit and freshness of perspective to ongoing debates over topics ranging from assistedreproduction and personalized medicine to genetic sports doping, revealing both surprisingcontinuities and radical discontinuities between the latest advances in the life sciences andlong-standing human traditions. The task of institutions in the molecular age, they argue, is tomake a pluralistic society possible by carving a legitimate free space that allows experimentationwith new forms of biological life as well as with new forms of social life.

Helga Nowotny, one of the leading European voices in Science Studies, is President of the European Research Council and Chair, Scientific Advisory Board, University of Vienna.