IFRIS Seminar

Jean-Paul Gaudillière (CERMES, INSERM-EHESS) and Pierre-Benoit Joly (INRA /SenS)

2nd meeting : “The embryo and the circulations of knowledge, tools and norms accross the human –animal boundary”

Organizers : Martin Rémondet, Laurence Esterle.

Contact : remondet@inra-ifris.org

Date : 11 september 2009, from 10a.m. to 5.30pm

Location : Cermes
7, rue Guy Môquet
94801 Villejuif

More information on the location

Recent developments in biology have resulted in the emergence of practices (xenografts, cloning …) and entities (stem-cells, “humanized” animal models, human-animal chimeras, …) that challenge and question the human – animal boundary. This evolution is grounded in concepts and tools (notably developed in molecular biology) that encompass a unified, trans-specific vision of life. But it is also based on older frames of cooperation – in the fields of embryology and embryo technologies, of the reproduction sciences more generally – that made possible the transfer of tools and techniques developed for animals to human biology and biomedicine.

Different disciplinary perspectives (political science, sociology, STS, history of science) have been associated with scattered attempts at characterizing this circulation, questioning the governance of those entities, the techniques used to define them, the way current policies (re)frame the human-animal distinction and the specificities of the human species. Bringing together these approaches, this workshop aims at exploring different types of questions associated with past and present uses of the embryo.

The workshop aims at analyzing how the human – animal boundary is performed and (re)defined by biotechnological practices, but also by the sets of rules (from laws to “best” or local practices) that govern their use. The second aim is to question the specificity of contemporary practices: recent conceptual and technical developments point towards radical challenges to the human-animal distinction (xenografts, hybrids and “humanized” animals ) whose characteristics, specificities and novelty deserve further analysis. In a more historical perspective, the third objective of the seminar is to re-situate contemporary practices within (or in contrast to …) existing networks and configurations that governed the circulation of embryo and reproduction technologies from animals to humans.

Programme :

10h-13h – “Practices at the Human-Animal Boundary” Session

Nick Hopwood: Rethinking the history of the mammalian embryo between the farm and the clinic.

Martin Rémondet : Animal cloning between fundamental research and reproductive technology.

Lene Koch : Modeling pigs and humans in contemporary biological and biomedical research.

14h-17h30 - “Politics and governance at the Human-Animal Boundary” Session

Gisela Badura : Crossing species boundaries – chimeras and the normativity of science

Philippe Brunet: Pouvoir travailler en laboratoire : tensions éthico-normatives sur les cellules
souches embryonnaires humaines.

Boris Auray : the European regulation of stem cells.

Conclusive remarks : Jean-Paul Gaudillière.